


Time After Time

by TheWordsInMyHead



Series: Time After Time [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence... of a Canon Divergence, And then some more tropes, F/M, Kid Fic, Not quite fluff because there's plot but it's close, POV Multiple, Probably the most self-indulgent thing I will ever write, Protective Bellamy Blake, Time Travel is Confusing, Tropes, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25511113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWordsInMyHead/pseuds/TheWordsInMyHead
Summary: Cas is back in time, her little brother by her side, looking for a way to stop the end of the world and hoping for a chance to see her parents again; people who only exist to her as haze shapes and half formed memories.Clarke is all alone in the forest after her actions in Mount Weather, looking for peace and terrified that it’s unattainable; afraid that her decision to leave will have cost her everything, but unsure how to go back.Bellamy is back at Arcadia attempting to hold everything together, to do his best. His best though, is impossible when he’s constantly haunted by regrets and ‘what-ifs’.When their paths converge, they start to realize that what they are looking for can be found in each other.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: Time After Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975162
Comments: 58
Kudos: 211





	1. Cassandra

**Author's Note:**

> Since the show is depressing and life isn’t really a whole lot better, I decided I wanted to write something fun and really what’s more fun a time traveling kid fic. Okay, maybe having an actually bellarke scene in the show, but I don’t have that kind of power. If only... 
> 
> A long time ago (okay, more like a year), I promised myself that I wouldn’t ever post something that wasn’t already done, the unfinished story in my list is a continual source of shame (I’m going to finish it someday. I will… you all believe that, right? _hides away_ ). 
> 
> Anyway! So, this isn’t finished, but now I have the lovely Meyers to hold me accountable and she swears that it will get done. I’m not going to say when chapters will be posted, I'll try my best though, to get at least one a week. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy my happy place!

Holding her breath, Cassandra hits the final key in the sequence. She doesn’t think it’s going to work; it hasn’t in the three years that she’s been trying nor in the three before when it was Murphy and Emori (mostly Emori) who were attempting to get it going, but still, she lets out her breath and hopes that it will. 

When they first found plans for a literal time machine in Becca’s lab, everyone was skeptical. 

“Time travel? No way,” she remembers Emori remarking with a scoff, “What’s next? Pigs will fly or—” 

“People will fall from the sky,” Murphy finished with a smirk. 

Emori turned to glare at him then, she was always glaring at him, but it never seemed to bother either of them. “You can’t be serious.” 

“Of course not. It's a bunch of bullshit designs from the lady whose major accomplishment was an artificial intelligence that wanted to kill everyone to save them. It’s not going to work, definitely not work well, but we’ve got time. Do you have anything better for us to do?” 

So, they started working on it, gathering the pieces of tech from everywhere. They ravaged through the remains of Arcadia, taking what the Arkers didn’t. They looked through the grounder cities, empty from even before the death wave hit. The debris of Mount Weather. 

It was a great distraction; like Murphy said they had time. Five years, that’s how long Raven’s projections had said before the Earth would be survivable again for everyone else. For the first three years, it was just fun, but then the bunker didn’t open, their friends didn’t come down from the sky, the plants didn’t start re-growing. By that point, it stopped looking like a fun side project and more like a last resort. 

The machine hums to life in front of her and then doesn’t immediately turn out. She blinks at it in confusion a few times before coming back to her senses. It's never stayed on this long. Could it have actually worked? 

“Run diagnostics,” she calls out into the empty room, her command only the slightest bit shaky. 

“Connection unstable,” the automated voice tells her a few seconds later. She rolls her eyes; no kidding. She didn’t need a super-powered computer to tell her that. 

“Destination unplottable.” 

She bites down on her lip. That’s a bit more of a problem, but considering the fact that she’s never even made it this far before something blew, shutting it down, she’s still going to consider it a success. From everything she’s read, she’s most likely to go back to where she wants to. Once she’s in the machine, time will bend to her will. Or not. Her understanding of time travel does come from the science fiction novels that line the walls of their home. 

Either way, she’s pretty sure that they won’t end up too far back and that belief actually has some science behind it; she learned that reading Becca’s journal. According to her, time doesn’t like to change. It will most likely send her somewhere where her mere presence will cause the least number of ripples. She shouldn’t go back to a time where she doesn’t already exist or at the very least, her parents already exist. 

The truth is she doesn’t know. She’s guessing with everything here, but she has also been guessing trying to build a time machine and that seems to have worked out. 

“Success rate: 43%.” 

Not great, she thinks even as a tingle of anticipation runs down her back. The analysis is almost complete and the machine is _still_ working. 

“Recommendation: Do not advance.” 

The warning rings out loud across the workroom, echoing inside her head. Do not advance. 43%. And yet, despite the odds, every molecule inside of her wants to walk through that glowing arch. The odds aren’t great, even good. The outcome on the other side is more than uncertain and yet, she feels certain that it will be better than what their future here looks like. 

Here they will be alone for the rest of their lives and while she won’t ever be able to just give up, not while EJ still breaths, not while he still smiles, she knows deep down that what they have here isn’t any kind of life. Maybe nothing waits on the other side, but maybe everything does instead. 

Maybe a younger version of Murphy will be waiting for them. They could get to see him again, and not just him, but him when he would still smirk and joke. They could see Emori again. Maybe they could even get a chance to see their parents. People who only exist to her as haze shapes and half-formed memories. She presses her hand against the locket around her neck, assuring herself of its existence like she has every time memories of them seem just out of reach. 

The thought of seeing them again, of getting to introduce EJ to them, sends a surge of longing through her so strong that she has to grab onto the edge of the desk to stop herself from moving forward. If they go through there, the impossible suddenly becomes possible.

She knows that Murphy must have known their parents, even though he never actually said. It was there sometimes in the way that he’d look at them a little too long, or in the way, he’d curse into his cup on the nights he allowed himself to drink. In her more dramatic years, she often wondered if the reason he wouldn’t talk about them was because he killed them. 

There hasn’t ever been anyone other than the four of them around to confirm her belief, but she’s nearly positive that he could do it. Once, she just asked him about it, her curiosity stronger than any fear that she might be right. He laughed in response, a full and unrestrained sound that they didn’t hear often before turning to look at her with a wink. 

Still, she thinks that he could have done it, even if he didn’t. There used to be this glint in his eye whenever he’d sit spinning his knife in the air for hours on end. It’s a glint that she’s sure is in hers now too. While she’s never been faced with the choice, she’s sure that she could; especially if they were a threat to Evander. 

Her brother; her responsibility. 

That’s another reason she’s sure he knew them. The first time she said that mantra out loud, the day EJ slipped on some rocks and scraped his knee because she didn’t think to be paying attention, not accustomed to him walking with such skill, Murphy yelled at her. He didn’t do that, not often, even though she knows that he was tempted a lot of the time, but on that day, his reaction was visceral. Don’t say that, he told her, taking the crying child out of her arms to attend to his wounds. 

Later, Emori had come to her where she had hidden herself right at the edge of the ‘safe zone’, glaring out into the emptiness with all the anger of an eight-year-old and told her why. Or at least some version of why. Apparently, that had been one of her parents’ fears when they found out about EJ. They didn’t want the price for another child to be the childhood of the one they already had. Murphy had promised her mom before she died that he wouldn’t let that happen.

Even though every part of her wants to just rush forward, she stops and thinks because it’s not just her. My brother, my responsibility might not have been necessary six years ago, but it is now. It’s not just her she’s risking walking into there because she’s sure as hell not walking in there alone. She owes it to him to take the extra time to consider their options even if that extra time might end up costing them the choice. 

Standing in the middle of the lab, she strums her fingers across the desk thinking, considering, but even after a few minutes, she still can’t think of a reason not to go. Even if they don’t manage to find Murphy and Emori or their parents, they will at least find someone. They will have a chance to build some kind of life for themselves and maybe if she does it right, she’ll be able to stop the reactors from melting down for good. 

The thought that she might not only be able to save herself and her brother, but everyone who died from radiation poisoning, either slowly before anyone figured out what was happening or quickly, when waves of fire consumed the earth killing almost everyone in its path, finally spurs her into action. 

With one eye still on the glowing arch, she maneuvers to the attached room where Evander fell asleep hours ago. Sitting on the edge of the couch she shakes his shoulder gently to wake him up, not wanting to scare him in her hast. 

“Mm sleeping, Dandy,” he groans, pushing his face into the cushion. 

“No, no, no,” she says, reaching under his arms to pull him into a sitting position, “you need to wake up. We are going.” 

“Going where?” he asks, rubbing at his eye still mostly asleep. She’s considering just picking him up and going when his eyes open fully to look at her in astonishment, “You got it to work?” 

She can’t stop the triumphant grin from overtaking her face. Six years and she finally figured it out. “I did. But we have to move quickly. I don’t know how long it is going to be good for.” 

Her words serve as a reminder to herself; they need to move fast. She looks around the room, trying to decide what to bring while simultaneously cursing herself for not having considered it before now. She grabs his backpack off the ground and dumps it over. What’s important? 

Water. She checks both of their canisters and is pleased to find them full. Food. She pushes the protein bars back into the bag; there are seven which should last them for a few days if food happens to be hard to find. Their basic necessities provided for, she considers what she would be sad to lose from their life here or more importantly what EJ would be sad to lose. 

The book of ancient myths that he’s always loved goes back in the bag. Along with the patched together blanket that was once hers, but is now his. She pats the side of her leg down to make sure Murphy’s knife is still in its holder. Off the wall, she grabs the line of polar pictures, stopping for a second to look at the only one of all of them before carefully tucking them into the side pocket. 

Conscious of their dwindling time, she looks once more around the room quickly. She’s sure that there are things from the main house that would have been nice, but there’s nothing so important that she’s willing to take the time to go there. Through the glass wall, she can still see the glow of the machine. Time to go. 

As she walks back towards it, she doesn’t allow fear to hesitate her steps, but the same can’t be said for EJ. She stops a step away from the passage and turns to find him hesitating far behind her. 

“What if it doesn’t work?” he asks quietly, the look of fear unfamiliar on his face. 

Mustering every ounce of confidence inside of her, she walks back over to him and then crouches to his height. “It’s going to work.”

“But how do you know?” 

“Do you trust me?” she asks, deciding to take a different approach. He nods his head easily. “Okay then, it’s going to work.” 

She offers her hand to him and he takes it, grabbing hold with all his strength, “Okay.” 

“We’ll do this together,” she says as they move closer, smiling down at him encouragingly. 

To her relief, he smiles back, “Like Mom and Dad?” 

“Exactly,” she tells him as the white light consumes them both.


	2. Clarke

Standing back at the gate to Arcadia, Clarke hadn’t known how to live with what she’d done, not with the faces of the people she’d done it for staring back at her each and every day. So, she’d left, turned her back on the man who’d promised to carry the burden with her, who tried to offer her the forgiveness she sought. 

The thing he didn’t realize then, but she’s sure he knows now, is that she didn’t deserve the forgiveness he offered. More than that, she knew without a doubt that her choice in the Mountain wasn’t a burden that he should have to bear. She wasn’t going to let him bear it. So, she’d torn her heart out and probably his too because it was better than the alternative. 

When she’s alone there’s no one around for her to hurt. 

She hears the sounds of footsteps and instantly tenses up. In the month she’s been gone, she’s managed to avoid interacting with anyone and she doesn’t want to change that pattern anytime soon. Holding her breath, she wills her body to blend into the background.

The footsteps get closer and the muffled sounds of voices become clearer. “Look at the trees Dandy! They are so tall! I don’t even think I can even see the tops.” 

Clarke narrows her eyes in confusion. English. And what sounds like a child. They are nearly a day's ride from Arcadia here; there shouldn’t be anyone speaking English with this degree of familiarity. Especially not from someone clearly not a warrior. 

“It’s amazing,” Clarke hears another voice respond with an air of sarcasm, but underneath that is the same sort of wonder as the child. Who are these people? Where did they come from? 

They continue to move through the forest towards Clarke, crunching on every twig and stone as they go, confirming Clarke’s suspicions. They aren’t grounders; no grounder she’s encountered makes that much noise moving. 

“EJ, you need to stay close to me. And for god’s sake please be quiet, we don’t know what’s out here,” the other voice, a woman, reprimands lightly. 

Wrapped up in the curiosity of these strangers, Clarke doesn’t realize how close they are until they are breaking through the bush into the clearing she stopped in. For a second, they just look at each other, blue eyes meeting blue. Clarke watches the flash of fear in her eyes, so familiar, before she pushes it back down, also familiar. 

“Stay back!” she tells Clarke sharply in Trig, grabbing a knife out of the holster on her leg and stepping in front of the boy. 

Clarke tilts her head quizzically at the somewhat clumsy switch to Trig before dismissing it. With her hair dyed and her usual clothes exchanged for grounder wear, she doesn’t look like Skykru. Which, really, was the point of the changes. She raises her hands up for the woman to see that she’s unarmed, a gentle smile on her face. “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.” 

If possible, the woman, who she’s now realizing is bearly even a teenager, looks warrier, “I think I’ll be the judge of that.” 

Back English, Clarke notes, looking at the pair in front of her more closely. If she had to guess, she’d say the girl was early teens while the boy is closer to like seven or eight. They both have curly dark hair, freckles across their faces, and are skinny in a way she’s come to expect from the ground. 

“Where do you come from?” Clarke asks still in Trig, waiting for the response with interest. 

“We are— from. We—“ she stumbles over the Trig, before letting out a very English curse. 

“It’s okay,” Clarke reassures her, trying not to smile at the annoyance on the young girl’s face. She gets it; trying to sound more confident, to be more confident than the situation warrants, it is something that she’s down countless times since they landed, but it’s not necessary. “My name is Clarke... Clarke kom Skykru.” 

Clarke hears a sharp intake of breath from the girl as understanding floods her eyes then watches in satisfaction when she lets out an almost silent sigh of, what Clarke thinks must be, relief. She’s right if the way the girl loosens her grip on the knife is anything to go by, but she still looks hesitant, and for some reason that bothers Clarke. She could help these two, help them in a way that she hasn’t been able to help anyone in a long time. 

“We came down in the ark too,” she whispers in response after a moment. So quiet that Clarke can barely hear her, almost like she’s not sure she should be saying what she's saying. 

Regardless, it’s enough for Clarke to confirm her suspicions and know that she was right for pushing. She can help them. “Okay, that’s good. I can help you, show you how to get back to your people. There’s a city where everyone has gathered. What are your names?” 

“I’m Cassandra,” she answers, the rest of her defensiveness dropping away quickly, “and this is my brother EJ; Evander, but I call him— what's wrong?” 

“Your brother?” Clarke asks sharply. She knows it’s possible of course, she’s very familiar with a pair of siblings that shouldn't exist, but two unknown siblings at once? And one that remained undiscovered? No way. She narrows her eyes at them. 

“Yes,” Cassandra responds with matching fire in her tone. She pushes the boy who’d just started to peek around her, back behind her. “but that’s none of your business.” 

“Your brother, from the ark?” Clarke asks again more incessantly, not at all deterred by the glare that she shoots her way. She went up against Bellamy Blake and won; there’s no one out there more stubborn than him. 

“What?” Cassandra says, looking at her like she’s nuts, “Actually, you know what, never mind.” 

She grabs hold of the boy's hand and starts to turn away, but Clarke can’t let that happen. She didn’t mean to scare them off. She wants to help, needs to help with a desperation she doesn’t quite understand. “No, wait!” 

The minute Clarke takes a step towards them, the girl, Cassandra, twists back to face her; the dagger back in her hand and a cold look in her eye. “Okay look, you seem nice, a bit deranged but nice. I am going to do what I have to though to keep us safe so I suggest you let us go. No one needs to get hurt.” 

“I’m not looking to hurt you,” Clarke responds with a twinge of exasperation, but before she can finish her explanation, both of their attention is drawn to a small whimper from behind them. 

Cassandra reacts before the source of the noise has really even registered for Clarke, moving towards the boy on the ground clutching at his knee with a speed she didn’t know was possible. 

“Dandy, it hurts,” the child cries softly, pulling at Clarke’s heart. 

“It’s okay,” Cassandra replies quickly, “I’m going to fix it. Just give me a second and it will be fine… shit, you’re bleeding.” 

“I can help,” Clarke tells her, “I’m a doc—” 

“Don’t come any closer,” Cassandra warns without looking away from her task. 

Clarke watches them for a moment, feet planted firmly in the ground. She watches Cassandra rummage through the bag on her shoulder, muttering curses to herself. She watches EJ bite down on his lip to try and stop tears from leaking out. She watches and then she decides that following orders has never been a good reason not to do something. 

As soon as she steps closer, ignoring the girl's warnings, Clarke can see that it’s not a major injury. It’s really nothing more than a simple scrap, but her attention is quickly drawn to the thin droplet of blood dripping down his leg. “Your blood is black.” 

“Yes,” Cassandra says, throwing the apparently useless backpack down in frustration and then running her hands through her hair.

EJ awkwardly pats her on the shoulder as Clarke makes her way closer, reaching into the pack around her waist for disinfectant. She waits until he gives her a nod of approval and a small smile before she wipes the skin clean. Reaching into her bag again, she grabs a scrap piece of cloth to make a makeshift bandage out of. 

Keeping her tone purposely light and only slightly interested, Clarke asks the question she wants to ask, “Why?” 

For a moment, Clarke doesn’t think that she’s going to answer, but then she sits up with a sigh, taking her brother’s hand. “It helps protect us from radiation.” 

“Is it genetic?” Clarke can see the wariness growing again in Cassandra out of the corner of her eye, but she can’t seem to help herself. A blood alteration that protects against radiation, that’s amazing. It could have solved all their problems in Mount Weather. Maybe if they had known about that she wouldn’t have had to— 

“I don’t know. For him it was, but I was injected along with my parents. They didn’t know if it was going to work. It was an experiment,” she struggles to answer. 

Clarke can see that she’s just about at her limit so she tells herself only one more thing and she’ll let it go, “And it worked?” 

“Well, we are sitting here, aren’t we?” Cassandra snaps at her sarcastically. 

“Your parents—” 

“Dead. But not from radiation because I’m sure that was going to be the next question.” 

Bandage secure, Clarke turns her full attention back to the girl sitting beside them with a forced air of nonchalance. Maybe it’s because she’s seen it before now in Bellamy, or maybe she’s just not as naïve as she once was, but it’s easy to tell how much of an act her indifference is. 

“I’m sorry,” Clarke tells her, putting every ounce of sympathy into her voice. Losing a parent is awful, she can’t imagine what it would have been like losing both. Especially at their age. 

Cassandra just rolls her eyes, “Gee thanks that helps so much.” 

Biting back a smile, Clarke stands. All alone, she didn’t think she missed interacting with people, but maybe she did. It's nice having someone around to talk to.

“You don’t need to be rude Cas,” EJ reprimands lightly, looking between his sister and Clarke. She smiles at him, letting him know that she wasn’t offended by the brush off. Everyone deals with grief in different ways. 

“But it’s more fun,” she responds with a smirk, “Are you okay then?”

“Yup,” he says brightly like he wasn’t close to tears minutes ago. He pushes himself off the ground, gently placing weight on his leg and Cassandra nods in approval. 

“Can we keep going then?” Cas asks, moving towards the edge of the clearing without waiting for an answer from him or acknowledging Clarke still standing there. 

EJ follows easily before turning back to look at Clarke, “Are you coming with us?” 

“EJ,” Cassandra groans, stopping suddenly, “I know you don’t get it, but you can’t just ask people you barely know to join up with you."

“Why not?” he says like he genuinely doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t invite her along, “It’s not like you know the way to Arcadia.” 

“Because it’s rude,” she teases him, ruffling his messy curls. He grins up at her and she grins back before eventually turning back to Clarke with a sigh, “if you wanted to show us the way...” 

It's on the tip of her tongue to say no. She hasn’t gotten anywhere close to there since she left, knowing that the temptation to check up on everyone would be too great if it was possible on a whim and that leaving for a second time would be even more unfair. Every self-preservation instinct inside of her wants to say no, but then she looks at the two of them, standing there as a unit watching her, and she says yes. 

In a matter of minutes, she’s come to care about these kids. If she can help them, if she can keep them safe, and make sure that they get somewhere they belong, she wants to do it. Even if she’s not at all confident that the Ark is where they came from, Arcadia will be a good place for them. They will be happy there and more importantly, taken care of. She’s sure that Bellamy will take to them just as quickly. 

“Okay, I just need to grab some stuff and then we’ll go,” Clarke tells them, pleased when she sees happiness on his face and relief on hers. She might not be ready to go home yet, but she can at least get them close enough. Besides, it could be nice having some company for a few days.  


* * *

  
They make good time the rest of the day, closing in on the area surrounding Arcadia quicker than Clarke would like. It's even better than she imagined, having companions again. Cas doesn’t talk much, not that Clarke really expected her too, but EJ does and even though he doesn’t say anything of importance, Clarke finds listening to his mindless chatter healing. 

The quick pace and the excitement of having people around mean that it’s not until hours later when they are settled down under the stars for the night that Clarke realizes where they must have come from. And then as soon as it does, the temptation to run rushes through her again. Blood alterations, unfamiliarity with nature, dead parents; they probably came from Mount Weather. 

A shiver runs down her spine despite the relative warmth of the evening. If their parents had the blood alteration then it wouldn’t have been her pulling the lever that actually killed them, but there’s no doubt that she is responsible for the fact that two kids are alone. 

She’s got her bag on her back, ready to walk away, when the sight of them curled together asleep catches her eye. They have probably been wandering around this forest for a month; she hopes that they have because the alternative, that they went back to Mount Weather and encountered the decaying bodies of everyone they ever knew is just too horrible to imagine. 

EJ twists so that he’s buried further into Cassandra's side, she lifts an arm up to accommodate him instinctually and Clarke feels a pang go through her chest. They are alone because of her, is she really going to abandon them again? 

Settling back on the log she’s made her seat, Clarke makes the same promise to herself as before, to make sure they get to somewhere they can be safe and happy, but their time, there’s more weight to the vow. She won’t let them down.


	3. Bellamy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three chapters in and there's finally some Bellarke interaction in this Bellarke fic. I promise that it will stay that way for the rest of the story.

“Come on Blake, we are leaving in five minutes with or without you.” 

“Yes, sir,” Bellamy calls out to the retreating form of his new commander mostly because it’s what he should say. What he’d like to say is that he will take all the time he wants since there’s no way they would venture as far from home base as they are planning to without him, but he doesn’t. He’s trying to behave, to solve problems, not make them. 

It's hard though, much harder than he’d thought it was going to be, mostly because he’s trying whereas before he would have just said screw it and let them drown themselves. And because she’s not here, not around to remind him why he’s supposed to bother when it seems pointless. 

Shoving the rest of his belongings into his pack, Bellamy pushes all thoughts of her away. As he watched her walk away, he told himself that it was okay. He could accept that she felt she had to go even if he didn’t understand it, but then everything was a mess. Some people were looking at him like he was supposed to lead while others looked at him like leading should be the last thing on his mind and through it all, the meetings and the arguments, the late nights and the hollow words of comfort, she wasn’t there. 

He's learned over the last few weeks that just not thinking about her is his best course of action. He doesn’t want to be angry with her, not for something that he knows hurt her to do and he doesn’t want to be upset either. He actually can’t be, not with a new fire to put out every day. 

Maybe that was her plan, he wonders idly, slinging the bag across his shoulders, tell him to take care of everyone so that he doesn’t have time to miss her. Well, if that was her plan it was a shitty one, he thinks bitterly before once again forcing thoughts of her out of his head. It doesn’t really work, it never really works, but he's still got to try.

“Are you ready to keep these people alive?” Miller asks, falling in step beside him. Instead of answering, Bellamy just makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a scoff. There isn’t actually a good answer. “Yeah, same. Who would have thought that a bunch of teenage criminals would be the easier option.” 

The noise he lets out this time is clearly a scoff. He totally could have called that. At least the hundred were aware that they needed someone around to make the calls, keep them safe. With the guards, he has to somehow keep them safe while making them think that they are totally self-sufficient. It’s nothing short of exhausting. “Why did we volunteer for this again?” 

Miller sends him a look which clearly says Clarke, but he’s smart enough not to say that to Bellamy’s face nowadays. Instead, he just shrugs, “It would be a pain if they got themselves killed too. Plus, we get to escape this prison for a while.” 

Shaking his head, Bellamy just keeps walking. While Miller may be able to get away with saying things like that, Bellamy can’t. Or at least he doesn’t feel like he can. Every day this place starts to feel more and more like the Srk to the point where he often finds himself wondering why he stays. Oh right, _Clarke_. 

He shifts his focus to their leader for this trip where he stands in front of them, giving them a totally unnecessary pep talk. Apparently, his thoughts can't be trusted to stay where they should. “And finally, I want everyone to keep their eyes open and their guns ready. We aren’t expecting any trouble, but it’s a dangerous world out there.” 

It takes everything within Bellamy not to roll his eyes and when he glances to the right, he sees Miller with almost the same exasperated expression lingering under the surface. Miller tips his head towards the man still talking and then rolls his eyes, not being nearly as subtle as he probably should. Bellamy grins back at him; he may not have the person he wants beside him, but he’s not alone.  


* * *

  
To Bellamy’s great surprise, they make good time hiking through the forest so by the time the sun is getting low in the sky, they are not only on schedule but ahead. That along with the wide-open air has put him into such a good mood that he isn’t even annoyed when he’s told to go get fresh water for the camp like he’s still a cadet and not the one who has been leading them all day. 

Feeling good about the world, Bellamy is just about to step out of the treelike towards the lake when he spots her. His hand instantly goes to the gun at his hip because it doesn’t matter that she seems to be harmless; he knows better. 

Slowly, he creeps closer, more aware of his surroundings now. A few steps away, he pauses to observe her. With her hair tied back in a braid and scowl across her face, Bellamy would guess that she’s around thirteen, maybe a little younger. From what he can tell, she doesn’t seem to be aware of him yet, entirely intent on whatever she’s watching which leads him to believe that she’s not any kind of warrior. She really does appear to be harmless, but there’s only one way to know for sure. 

He steps out of the trees, ready for an attack, but not expecting one. “Hello.” 

“Ahggg,” she squeals, falling backward off the rock she was sitting on despite his attempt to catch her in time, “Where the hell did you come from?” 

“It’s okay,” he says, trying to reassure her, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She pushes herself off the ground, brushing a loose curl off her face and then looks at him warily, “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”

Instantly, an almost overwhelming surge of protectiveness passes over him, “Did someone hurt you?” 

“No…,” she says slowly, looking at him like he’s insane, “she was fine. A little crazy and talks way too much, but fine. What were you going to do about it anyway?” 

There’s an amusement to her question that puts Bellamy at ease, “Hunt them down, of course, remind them how people are supposed to be treated.” 

She shakes her head at him but moves back to sit on the rock in front of him which Bellamy counts as a win. “You’re weird.” 

“I’m Bellamy,” he tells her, offering his hand to shake, curious whether she’ll take it. Not only to know whether he’s gained a fraction of her trust but to know where she comes from. In his experience, it’s a different experience with all the various factions of people he’s encountered. She takes his hand in hers exactly the way he would do it if the roles were reversed. _Interesting._ “And yeah, my sister tells me that all the time, do you have anyone with you?” 

Wry amusement fills her eyes and a smirk slides across her face like she wants him to know that he’s not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is, but she opens her mouth to answer so he’ll take what he can get. “Yeah I have my—” 

A childish shriek of joy cuts off the rest of her words and both of them turn to look at the water where the noise originated from. 

“Look Cas, I’m doing it,” a boy yells in excitement, but Bellamy is far more interested in the woman standing behind the child, helping him float. _Clarke._

Their eyes lock together and he manages to forget how to speak. She looks good, better than he expected her to if he’s honest. She’s maybe a little skinnier, but her eyes don’t hold the same shadows that they did last time he looked into them. 

She’s here, only a few steps away. Has she been this close the entire time? Could he have found her if only he was allowed to leave Arcadia sooner? And who are the kids? Where did they come from? How did she find them? He opens his mouth to ask at least one of the million questions racing through his head or even to just say a simple hello, but nothing comes out. 

From her position in the water, Clarke seems to be having the same difficulty. Her mouth opens and closes without a sound coming out; he can see everything in her eyes, the pain, the frustration, the regret, the hope, but it isn’t enough right now. After a month of nothing, he needs something more. 

Faintly, he hears the girl— Cas muttering beside him about stupid people, and of course, they know each other, but it all comes to him through a fog. His world has narrowed down to Clarke and he’s not sure that it’s ever going to expand back out. He’s not sure he wants it to. 

He opens his mouth, ready to say something, anything when a series of footsteps sound behind him. Cas tenses beside him a second later, but before he can question if she’s okay, Miller’s voice is ringing through the trees. “Did you get lost, Blake? We are all dying of thirst back here.” 

Bellamy rolls his eyes, calm now that he knows it’s just Miller and maybe another member of their party. When he looks back towards the water, Clarke is by the shore, just reaching for her top; the boy has run to the girl and is standing beside her. 

“Seriously,” Miller continues, “how hard is it to get water? I’m starting to think you left me all alone with those idiots which is a total dick move.” 

“I’ve never claimed to be anything else,” Bellamy calls back to let him know where he is, grinning even fuller when he sees a twinkle of amusement in Clarke’s eyes. 

“I’m going to remind you that,” Miller says, finally breaking through the tree line, “next time you tell me to— oh you found people… Clarke.” 

“Hi Miller,” Clarke greets with forced ease after a moment. 

“Where did you— where did they? Huh,” Miller half asks, looking at Bellamy with confusion, but underneath that is a glimmer of something he chooses to ignore. 

Instead, he turns back to face the girl, “I never did get your name?” 

“I’m Cassandra, Cas, and this is—” 

“That is EJ,” Clarke cuts in and his eyes snap back to her, pulled by some magnetic force, “I found them a few days ago, Ark survivors. Factory station. They were neighbors, practically siblings.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Bellamy can see Cassandra shoot Clarke a mysterious look, but he doesn’t turn to look at her, focusing instead on Clarke, sure that she’s circumventing the truth, if not straight-up lying. He doesn’t call her on it though. While he may trust Miller, whatever it is, she must not want to share. 

“Oh wow,” Miller exclaims in excitement; they have been looking for survivors on and off for the last month, hoping that other people had made it down, but so far, they haven’t had any luck. If he thought Clarke’s story was legit, he’d probably be excited too. “Were there any other survivors?” 

He hears Cas inhale deeply, ready to answer the question directed at her, but once again Clarke has an explanation waiting before the younger girl has the chance. “No, they never even had a chance, the station fractured on the way in. I found them wandering around in the forest over across the river and told them I’d help them get to Arcadia… but I guess you guys can get them back now, which means I should probably go—” 

Her words push any lingering interest over the kids’ identity from his thoughts and his reaction is instinctual, “No.” 

“No!” he hears the boy— EJ, echoing him. “You can’t just leave!” 

“EJ, she can leave whenever she wants to,” Cas reprimands, but there’s reluctance behind the indifference in her voice which tells Bellamy that she’s not any more eager to part ways. 

Bellamy however, doesn’t take his eyes off Clarke, sure for some reason that if he looks away, she will disappear again. He watches as a myriad of emotions flash across her face. Her eyes flit to the pair beside him before landing back on him with indecision heavy in her eyes. 

Taking a deep breath, he offers her the landline she’s begging him to give her, “Just come back and have dinner with us okay? It’s almost nightfall, you’re not going to be able to travel far anyways. Might as well stay here for now.” 

The logic behind his suggestion wins out after a moment and relief replaces the distress. Stepping closer to them, she becomes part of their group. EJ meets her halfway talking hold of her hand like he will be able to keep her physically by their side through the tether. Bellamy hopes it works; if circumstances were different, he’d be willing to try it himself. 

She tilts her head to the side, a silent thank you, once she’s standing in front of him and he lets out the breath he was holding. He’s got her back. Now, he just has to not let her slip away again.


	4. Cassandra

Cassandra watches the flames of the fire burn brightly, trying to at least appear comfortable since actually being comfortable doesn’t seem likely. There are too many people, too much noise. Every time a tree branch cracks under someone’s foot or a new voice joins into the mix, she feels her entire body tense over. 

When she thought about coming back, for the admittedly short few minutes she considered what it would be like, she never anticipated that being about people would be a problem. Which was stupid because this should not have been unexpected. Aside from the fact that it's been over eight years since she interacted with people regularly, she was practically raised by Murphy. A man who often felt uncomfortable with even his shadow for a companion. 

Thankfully, EJ doesn’t seem to be having the same dilemma, bouncing from person to person while happily chatting away. She’s listened closely to make sure that he’s not giving anything away, a movement which she can’t help but notice Clarke has also been making, but he hasn’t. For a boy that hadn’t met a single person a few days ago, he is remarkably at ease around strangers. 

She looks around the assembled group, trying to spot sounds before they occur, and her eyes land on Clarke eyeing the group warily. At least, she won’t be the only obvious standout. If she appears slightly uneasy to the average eye, Clarke looks completely tense. She took a seat hesitantly when they returned, right on the edge of the log as though ready to bolt at a moment's notice and hasn't settled since. 

It was only once the man— Bellamy sits down beside her, offering her a plate of food that she seems to finally fully rest in the seat. She’d say that Clarke looks more comfortable with Bellamy beside her, but instead, it’s like an entirely different level of tension has found its way inside of her. Not tenser necessarily, in fact, Cas can see the positive effect his presence has on her. The strain is still there though. 

Absently, Cassandra wonders what's the history between the two of them. She’s sure that there is something and whatever it is, it's interesting. The type of reaction they promoted in each other back at the lake is not normal by any means. 

Back when they met up with Clarke, she didn’t think to question Clarke’s presence so far from her home, but now, she can’t get the question out of her mind. She was running, Cas is certain of it. She recognized that look in Clarke’s eyes when she saw Bellamy easily. It’s one she sees in her reflection often; one she’s sure she’d see if she looked right now. 

She doesn’t run though, not in the past and not now. There are people counting on her— EJ is counting on her and her love for him has always outweighed her desire to run from failure. 

Pushing her feet into the ground, she crosses her arm and tells herself that she can handle it. Her resolution falters however as she watches Clarke stand up and disappear into the forest, Bellamy right behind her, out of the corner of her eye. 

It is her lingering curiosity, along with a desire to escape the group, that eventually pushes her onto her feet. Moving closer to the tree line, she twists her neck to try and spot where they are headed. With that determined, she catches EJ’s eye where he sits charming people with his smile and tips her head towards the direction they went. He nods his head slightly in understanding, giving her all the assurance, she needs to follow after them. 

Doing her best to not make any loud noises, she tries to follow their path, but it’s a lot harder than she thought it would be. The shadows from the leaves on the trees make seeing any type of trail nearly impossible to her untrained eye and the sounds of the nightlife prevent her from hearing any soft footfalls. 

Just as she’s about to settle on the ground, satisfied with being alone even if it means she won’t be able to discover anything new about their companion, when she suddenly hears Bellamy’s voice calling out through the trees, “Just stop for a second, Clarke. Please.”

There’s a desperation to his request that has her picking up her pace. She doesn’t know what exactly is happening, whatever it is though, she’s sure that she doesn’t want to miss it. Their voices have dropped again, but it doesn’t matter. Years of playing Marco, Pollo, throughout the mansion have given her the ability to locate voices with ease. Within seconds, she’s slowing to a stop behind a tree, the perfect view of the two of them in front of her. 

“Where are you even going to go?” Bellamy asks, taking a step closer to her, closing the already practically non-existent distance between them, “You just got back.” 

Clarke doesn’t appear phased by the closeness, not attempting to move back at all, but she doesn’t look him in the eye when she answers either, "I wasn’t coming back at all; I was only going to get them close enough to the gate so they would be safe...” 

“Oh right, of course, I shouldn’t have assumed,” Bellamy cuts in, a touch of bitterness to his voice, “After all, it’s only been a month. That probably isn’t enough to do— whatever it is you had to do.” 

Clarke lets out a sigh so long and deep that it reaches Cas even through the thick foliage. “Bellamy.” 

“No,” he responds quickly, running a hand through his hair in clear agitation, “I understand why you had to leave; I told myself that I wasn’t going to say anything when I saw you again...” 

“You know I wasn’t leaving you, right?” Clarke says softly. An uneasy air settles between them at his continued silence. “God, Bellamy, it wasn’t you. Everything else was a mess, but you—” 

“I know,” he says finally, offering her a small smile, but there’s more than a twinge of self-deprecation to it. 

Cas can see it clearly, and Clarke must too because she steps the rest of the distance between them, raising her hand like she’s going to put it on his cheek before ultimately letting it fall onto his shoulder. “You were— You are— If there was ever going to be anything to make me stay, it would have been you.” 

He looks into her eyes; she meets his gaze steadily for what Cas thinks is probably the first in a while and holds it. Neither of them says anything, at least not anything that she can hear, but after a minute, his shoulders lose their tension, and the smiles on both of their faces seem to come more easily. 

As she watches them stare at each other, their eyes filled with an emotion she can only describe as love and she starts to feel uncomfortable; this moment isn’t for her. And yet, she can’t seem to pull herself away. It's not something she’s seen before. Murphy and Emori loved each other, deeply, she had absolutely no doubt about that even before he fell apart after her disappearance. 

It was different somehow though, not less, definitely not less, but not quite as much either. The two people in front of her, with the longing, the love, and the pain passing through them in equal measure, seem like they are pulled straight from one of her books. 

The way they are looking at each other now is how she likes to imagine her parents. She knows that by the time Murphy and Emori found them, it was just her and her mom, EJ not quite in the world yet, and she wonders how hard that was for her mom, to lose her other half. It makes it easier, somehow, to know that even though she wasn’t with them, at least she didn’t have to be without him. 

“Who are these kids to you?” Bellamy asks, startling Cas out of her thoughts. 

Clarke tilts her head to the side at the very obvious subject change before seeming to consider her answer. Cas waits just as eagerly as Bellamy to hear what she has to say, still confused by her quick lie about their past that she clearly doesn’t believe. “I found them—” 

“Yeah, I heard that, but what really happened?” 

“I found them,” Clarke repeats with a sharp look, apparently unfazed by the ease with which he saw through her lie, “not far from the river.” 

Bellamy’s eyes narrow in consideration, but he isn’t able to figure out what Clarke’s telling him, “I’m still missing something. I don’t get it.” 

“She told me that they were ark survivors which would have made sense except for in the next breath she introduced me to her little brother.” 

“Wait, what? Really?” Bellamy asks, the same shock coating his features as Clarke’s when she first found out. What could it be that makes them so twitchy about siblings? “That’s impossible or at least highly unlikely.” 

“Exactly,” Clarke murmurs, so quiet that she almost can’t hear, “it didn’t make sense, but there were other things about them which made it seem like they could be; the way they talked, the things they would say, even how they looked. It didn’t make sense and then EJ fell and scraped his knee open.” 

“Okay,” he says slowly with a tiny bit of exasperation. Or maybe she just imagines that. It’d be great if Clarke could hurry up and get to the dang point. 

“Their blood— anyways, apparently they underwent some kind of blood alteration which allows them to survive in the radiation.” What on earth does nightblood have to do with this? 

The comprehension Clarke was looking for before finally lands in Bellamy’s eyes with a gasp, “Mount Weather.” 

“Yeah,” Clarke she confirms with a pinched expression, “I obviously don’t know for sure, but I wasn’t about to…” 

“To ask,” Bellamy finishes off for her, face grim, “No, I wouldn’t expect you’d want to.” 

_ What the hell is Mount Weather? _ Cas thinks in annoyance, fighting off the urge to barge over to them and make them explain their fervent looks when it’s clear that neither of them is going to say anything else. They both look like they’ve seen a ghost, their complexions pale and their hands shaky. As much as the unanswered questions bother Cassandra, she almost doesn’t want to know. Not when whatever it was created that type of a reaction. 

“Anyways,” Clarke continues, wiping her hands against her pants, “after I realized that, I couldn’t just leave them to wander in grounder territory unknowingly. I was already thinking about it, but that sealed it for me. If I can manage to do some good, put some light back into the world.” 

“You do lots of good,” he tells her incessantly, repeating it again when it doesn’t seem like she believes him, “You do!” 

“Maybe,” she responds after a moment with a sigh like it’s the most she can give him, “I just wanted to make sure they were going to be okay. You’ll take care of them for me, right? Watch out for them?” 

“No,” Bellamy responds quickly, a sureness in his tone that makes her instantly like him more. They don’t need anyone to take care of them. EJ has got her and she’s been taking care of herself for almost as long as she can remember; Murphy and Emori always had their hands full between EJ and then just basic survival in a radiation-soaked planet. 

Clarke’s eyes widen in a mixture of shock and surprise, “What?” 

“I won’t be able too,” he tells her, shuffling his weight from foot to foot. Cas watches him move, wondering what has suddenly made him nervous. 

“Okay…” 

At Clarke’s continued confusion, he runs a hand through his hair and then takes a steadying breath. “I won’t be there. Clarke if you are going then I’m going to be right there beside you. I can’t— I let you walk away last time because I know that it’s what you needed and I stayed because I thought that’s how it had to be, but it doesn’t.”

“But what about everyone else?” Clarke asks, “They need you.”

“I don’t care,” Bellamy says simply. 

A soft smile graces Clarke’s face, “You do. I know you do; you always have even when you pretended otherwise.” 

“You mean I care exactly like you do?” he counters knowingly. Her face flushes, whether in irritation for being called out or because she just feels the intensity of his declaration finally getting to her, 

Cassandra isn’t sure. 

“It was different,” she tells him with a glint in her eye, “I could leave because I knew that they had you; I knew they would be fine.” 

“And they will still be fine. Look, you’re right, I wouldn’t be able to just leave them if I didn’t think that because I care. I just don’t care enough to stay without you again. I’ve done that and it was a mistake so I’ll take a bunch of trees with you over everyone and everything back there.” 

“You’re really serious,” Clarke says in disbelief.

“Totally,” he tells her seriously before allowing a grin to slide into his face, “Want to run away together? Just you and me, screw everyone else.” 

She laughs a bright and cheerful noise, before cutting off sharply like she’s unaccustomed to hearing it. The smile manages to stay though, even if it looks a little sad. “You know I can’t do that.” 

“You could,” Bellamy offers halfheartedly. 

“But I won’t,” Clarke responds with a ruthful grin. 

“I didn’t think so,” he says before cutting himself off. He rubs at the back of his neck, a move which Cas is starting to realize is a nervous tick, “I know it’s kind of awful what I’m doing, trust me, I know, but I just can’t keep doing it alone; I don’t want to. And also, I think it will be better than you think. I’ll be there all the time and together we can make it through all this. I just need you—“ 

The sweet smile on Clarke’s face grows as he continues to ramble, outmatched only in power by the look in her eye, “Okay.” 

“Need you to be— really? You’ll come home?” Bellamy asks with wonder and hope. 

“Yes,” Clarke says. 

She’s not sure which of them move first, but within seconds they are wrapped around each other in the fiercest hug she’s ever seen. She waits for a few more moments, but when it’s clear that they aren’t going to separate any time soon, she decides that it’s time for her to leave. 

Walking back the way she came, Cas wraps her arms around herself, unconsciously mimicking the two she just left. 


	5. Clarke

As they push through the last of the forest and the outskirts of Arcadia comes starkly into view, Clarke feels the tension that she’d been trying to ignore finally take hold within her body. In a last-ditch effort to keep herself from bolting back into the safety of the trees, she removes her gaze from the remains of the Ark and focuses back on Bellamy, talking to EJ perched on his shoulders, ahead of her.

The sight of them chatting away happily doesn’t remove any of her doubt, but it does remind her why she’s doing this and that’s enough to keep her feet moving forward. It only takes her a few steps, however, to notice that her companion has stopped, “Come on Cas. Just a tiny bit more and then you can rest.”

“I don’t want to go in there,” the young girl whispers back, so quietly that Clarke can barely hear her over the sounds of people from the city.

“You don’t need to worry,” Clarke says kindly, turning to face her, “Everything will be okay.”

Cas’ eyes shift off of Acadia and onto Clarke, the apprehension in them turning to scorn, “You don’t want to go in there any more than I do.”

Clarke pauses to consider her for a long moment, noting the way her hands are balled into fists at her sides, betraying the nervousness that she's so desperate not to show, and then finishes walking towards her. She stops once she’s at her side, swinging back to face the imposing structure that’s supposed to feel like home.

“No, I don’t,” Clarke eventually admits, allowing a fraction of the fear she feels to come through in the hope that it will help. Cas doesn’t say anything back so Clarke doesn’t either until Bellamy turns around to look at them curiously and she can see his own breed of apprehension in the look, “but I’m going to anyway; we both are.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Cas’ eyes lock on to the boys and a barely audible sigh falls from her lips. Bellamy’s brow creases in concern; he whispers something to EJ, sliding him off his shoulders and the two of them start walking back towards them.

They meet in the middle. EJ wraps one small hand around Cas, and the other around Clarke. Bellamy looks at her with a question in his eyes, nodding in reassurance. She nods back, considering for one brief moment whether to take his hand to complete their line before dismissing it. She doesn’t need to.

She can do this. EJ squeezes her hand. Cas squares her shoulders. Bellamy smiles at her. They can do this. Together.

* * *

Being back is every bit as hard as she expected. The people stare; some of them like her Mom ask too many questions, ones that she doesn’t have answers for even if she wanted to give them. Through it all though, she has Bellamy by her side and that makes it infinitely more bearable. Between him running interference with most people, catching her up on everything they’ve been working towards over the last month, and watching out for the kids, she almost doesn’t have time to acknowledge the unpleasant aspects of being back.

That first night, she had assumed that they would all still be sleeping outside in tents and it would be easy to stay close to Cas and EJ (and Bellamy), but that was far from the case. Apparently, her Mom had a room ready for her; a room which she expected her to take. Even though she reluctantly offered to shove the kids in there somewhere too, that wasn’t an option Clarke was eager to take. Bellamy also had a room, smaller of course, but looking between him, her Mom, and the kids, that seemed even less of an option.

She’d sat there scrambling for a solution that didn’t leave Cas and EJ crowded into a hall set aside for orphans with a bunch of kids they don’t know, but should when Bellamy unsurprisingly comes to the rescue.

“They can have mine,” he’d offered easily. Underneath that ease through was a steal that Clarke felt told of past arguments. Bellamy was always going to want to take care of people, especially kids. Something which her Mom must have learned since she posed no objections.

That first night the two of them settled them in the room, pulling in a spare cot, and then after they were both asleep, she’d left to go to her bed at her Mom’s while he went to the tent waiting for him outside. Later, when sleep proved impossible, she’d gone back to check on them before once again returning to her bed.

The next night both of them are caught up in a council meeting when the moon starts to rise. They’d been there for hours and still there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. She looks over at Bellamy and sees the same concern reflected back at her. Between the two of them, they have made sure that neither Cas nor EJ was alone for longer than a few minutes. It’s been too long.

They argue about it silently back and forth while everyone around them continues to talk in circles about everything else until eventually, Clarke lets out a silent sigh conceding the exchange. He slips out a few seconds later with no complaints and she knows that it was the right call for him to leave instead of her. Still, as she walks the distance to his room hours later, the halls empty around her, she wishes it could have been her.

“Clarke?” Bellamy asks, rising up off his pillow, voice rough with sleep when she opens the door, “is something wrong?”

“No,” she reassures him quickly, once she has managed to get over her shock of seeing him. She didn’t expect to find him here. Not that she’s about to tell him that, “I just wanted to check on them.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Come on in.” She hears the sound of sheets ruffling as she opens the door further, being careful to be quiet. She spots Cas in her bed, the blanket pulled up over her head, and then Bellamy in his, EJ snuggled into his side. “He, uh, fell asleep on me and then when I tried to move him off, he woke up and wouldn’t calm down and Cas didn’t have a problem with it so I told him I’d stay.”

She smiles softly at the pair, “I wasn’t judging; I was just surprised. It’s good that he’s comfortable with you. For him and for Cas. It means she can have a little space.”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Bellamy agrees, looking down at the boy in his lap, “Were you able to get anything sorted out with the council?”

“No, but that’s not surprising at all…” she trails off, trying to come up with something else to say. She did what she came here to do; they are clearly okay, and yet, she wants to leave even less than before.

He seems to hesitate for a second, looking anywhere but at her before stealing his resolve, “It’s late… you could just stay if you wanted. I’m sure EJ would like walking up to you here.”

She looks at the space beside him, more enticed by it than maybe she should be and fights a war within herself. She should just keep going to her bed, but he’s here, offering, and it’s not like she hasn’t slept beside him before. Not allowing herself time for doubts, she crosses the room she slips under the covers.

Almost instantly, she feels the tension inside of her disappear and the sleep that seems so elusive before starts to take hold, “Goodnight Bellamy.”

“Goodnight Clarke.”

The next night when she gets up to leave after saying goodnight, EJ asks where she’s going, grabbing on to her hand before she can get far. She looks at Bellamy and he just shrugs, _it’s up to you_. She tilts her head to the side, _it can’t be, I need you to say it’s alright. I can only allow myself to stay if you want me here._ He smiles at her, pulls down the other side of the bed, and tells her to get in.

People talk, her Mom gives her a truly unwanted lecture, but Clarke finds that she doesn’t really care. They are a team. They always have been and this is no different. As much as she might be more comfortable with the sound of Bellamy breathing next to her, she never would have considered staying again if EJ hadn’t asked her, but he did, so she will.

* * *

“What about if we moved some people over here?” Bellamy asks, tracing an imaginary circle around the map in front of them.

“That could work,” Clarke agrees even though she’s not exactly sure where he wants to move the metaphorical cabins or why.

She’ll blame it on the fact that it’s well past midnight and she’s been going pretty much non-stop in the two weeks since she’s been back, but the truth is that his hands are distracting. His hands, his shoulders, the way his messy curls fall into his face every time he leans forward and the little noise of annoyance he makes every time he pushes the too-long hair back.

He’s always been distracting, from the very first moment he smirked at her, but she had a pretty good handle on it. She’d figured out how to separate herself into two people: Clarke, the leader of the 100 and Clarke, the 17-year-old girl who had just been released after months of isolation. Thankfully, it was leader Clarke who spent most of her time around him.

It had worked and it had worked well until she spent days thinking he was dead. After that, there was no chance of separation. She’d run into his arms without an ounce of hesitation and then when she’d pulled back, his arms still wrapped around her back, and seen the same relief reflected in his eyes, she hadn’t had an ounce of regret.

Having him back was liberating. Suddenly, there was someone around who got it; she wasn’t alone anymore. They were going to get their people back and they were going to do it together. Thinking about it now, it all seems hopelessly naïve, but back then, it had just felt like hope.

After everyone else had gone to bed, the prospect of sleep more alluring than saving a group of people who they had already deemed expendable, the two of them had stayed up, vowing to figure it out. And they did. By the time the sun was peeking over the horizon they had the beginnings of a plan.

Even now, she doesn’t know how it happened; who made the first move. One second, they were grinning at each other triumphantly, and the next, they were pressed together. Lips moving with a desperation both of them felt to their bones and clothes disappearing with the same urgency. After that, everything had relaxed; time slowed and it was just the two of them caught in the moment, grateful to have the other.

If she had to guess, the stark similarities between that night and this one, the two of them huddled around a desk, making plans long after everyone else has given in for the day, is not helping her focus at all. Which is a problem. More than a problem.

When she’d come back-- when he had graciously allowed her back into his life after she had selfishly walked out on him with barely any warning, she had promised herself that she wouldn’t allow them to get back here. He hasn’t said anything and she doubts he ever will, but she knows that she hurt him. Really, she suspects that she broke his heart and she’s not about to do it again. She obviously can’t be trusted.

Sometimes, she’s not even sure that she can be trusted with what he’s already given her back, the small smiles, the messy hair, a sure sign of the frustration he doesn’t like to let people see, the quiet words of comfort late at night with EJ between them. No, she knows she doesn’t deserve it after everything, but love is weakness and he makes her weak.

“Hello, earth to Clarke,” he calls out, breaking her from her thoughts, “Are you falling asleep on me?”

She looks back up to his face where he’s got a teasing grin stretched across his lips, the kind of grin that she’s sure not many people get to see. Her heart skips a beat and her breath threatens to catch in her throat at the purity of the moment, but she forces herself to act normal, “Of course not. We can’t put the cabins there; they’d end up flooded every spring.”

“Clarke,” he says again, his grin growing.

“What?” she asks in mock irritation, rising out of her seat to flip through the various maps in front of them, “Where’s the one with the elevations? I know I’m right. I swear we had this debate right when we started.”

“I stopped talking about cabin placement five minutes ago,” he tells her curiously. She drops her head in resignation, letting the papers fall back into the pile with a thump, “Where did you mind go?”

Hanging her head lower, she hopes that the combination of her hair and the dim lighting will prevent him from seeing the blush covering her cheeks. With one more second to ensure that her voice comes out steady, she answers him, “Nothing important.”

She mentally curses herself when she hears the sound of his chair scraping against the ground as he gets up to come closer to her. Anyone else and that lie would have probably passed, but he’s always been able to see through her. If she was thinking clearly, she would have gone for a more believable half-truth.

“Clarke, look at me,” he says gently from right behind her, so close that she can practically feel his breath on the back of her neck. _Does he have any idea what he’s doing to her?_ A shiver runs down her spine, “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

For a second, she considers asking him to just let it go, confident that if she did, he would, but she knows that that would hurt him so instead, she gives herself until the count of ten and then turns around, praying that her blush isn’t still noticeable. It, of course, is. His head tilts in confusion, then his eyes widen in surprise and his mouth opens to form a little oh.

“We do not need to talk about this,” she says firmly, telling herself that the new wave of heat in her face is the result of embarrassment and not because he’s standing so close.

His jaw clenches, his eyes filled with indecision, but then he reaches forward to trace a finger across her cheek. She lets out an involuntary sigh, closing her eyes. When they snapback open a second later, the reluctance in his gaze is replaced with pure desire, “No, we should definitely talk about this.”


	6. Bellamy

Bellamy watches Clarke, the way her eyes flick involuntarily to his lips and then back up to his face, feeling the buzzing under his skin that he’s tried to ignore, increase in intensity, “No, we should definitely talk about this.” 

Part of him expects her to instantly close off at his words, that is most of the reason it’s taken nearly a month, not to mention these exact circumstances, for him to say them. She doesn’t though; she doesn’t run or even take that large of a step back even if the hesitance on her face screams to him that she’s thinking about it. 

He waits with bated breath for the world as he knows it to fall away, for her to be gone from him again, and it does, but not in the way he expects. She bites down on her lip and then nods her head slightly. His heart beats rapidly, the buzzing going into overdrive. He looks into her eyes and sees the kind of openness he wasn’t sure that he’d see again. 

“Okay,” she says when the silence starts to be too much, “let’s talk. I missed you.” 

It seems like such a simple thing, but it still takes his breath away. Logically, he knew; she told him in other ways, with other words, with the way she’s been curling into him at night or relaxing after a nightmare when he strokes a hand down her back, but it’s different. It feels like a confession, a confession mixed with a willingness to be open. 

Smiling softly at her, he reaches forward to grab her hand, “I know, but it’s still nice to hear after everything… I’m not going to lie, for a bit there, I wasn’t sure, but I know now. I knew even when I didn’t really.” 

“I made a mess out of this,” she says with a sigh, twisting their fingers together and then looking at them instead of him, “I should have handled things differently.” 

“Hey,” he calls out, tugging on her hand until she looks at him, “I know it might not have seemed like it, but I did understand why you wanted to go—” 

“No! Not leaving, before that. The mountain— I shouldn’t have just sent you in there like you meant nothing. Especially not right after we…” her cheeks flush again and the air grows heavy with tension. 

Her thumb traces along his wrist and for a second he thinks that he might just lean in and kiss her, talking be damned for the moment, but then she shakes her head, coming back to her senses and bringing him with her, “Sending me in there was the right call. It’s what needed to happen to save our people. I’d never hold that against you.” 

“It was the right call, but done the wrong way. It wasn’t just sex, not to me and I feel like the way I went about everything gave you the impression it was.” More than anything he wants to be able to rebuke her claim, but he can’t and she knows it if the regretful twinge to her eyes is anything to go by. “I was overwhelmed and confused so I shut down and unfortunately, you got left in the fallout of it all.” 

“We are here now,” he responds, squeezing her hand comfortingly, “that’s really all that matters to me. It’s really very obvious, but in case you haven’t heard, I sort of, kind of, missed you too.” 

The twinkle he loves so much enters her eyes, “Only sort of? That’s not how I’ve heard it. The way Miller tells it you were downright miserable—” 

“Okay, okay,” he says with a grin, pulling her back close to him, not caring that Miller has been running his mouth, “Maybe more than a bit.” 

She laughs bright and easy, clear like a warm spring day and he laughs along with her. He could get used to this, to the hope shining in her eyes and the feeling of her fingers twisting in his hair. More than anything, he wants to kiss her. He sees the same desire in her eyes, but underneath there’s still a twinge of hesitation, “Where does this leave us?” 

“Oh right, yes, we are supposed to be talking,” he says with a lighthearted groan, coming out of the haze enough to remember how this all started, “Let’s do it.” 

He keeps his arms around her waist and his hands splayed across her back, but he doesn’t let them move anywhere else. She’s right, the last time they were here, they didn’t take any time between frantic kisses and wandering hands to talk, at least nothing more than whispered words with ambiguous meanings, and as much as he’d love a repeat that, he won’t take it if it also means a repeat of what happened after. 

“I’m going to stay,” she reaffirms, looking him straight in the eyes like she’s concerned that he still doesn’t fully believe it. 

“Great,” he responds, grinning at her, “I wasn’t going to let you go anywhere without me again regardless of this all happening.” 

She leans her head against his shoulder and for a second, he thinks that maybe everything is actually going to work out, but then she looks back at him and the hesitancy from before is stronger than ever. “This isn’t a mistake, right? We aren’t being selfish, trying for more when the possibility of it not working out could hurt so many people?” 

A fond smile works its way into his face. He has had that same thought, more than once before everything happened and definitely again a few times after. It makes sense; a lot is riding on them being able to exist peacefully together. The people who count on them to lead, the two kids waiting back in his room for them to return, but he isn’t worried anymore. They are on the same page here. They are a team and he can’t think of anything that would change that, “No.” 

Her eyes widen in surprise at the confidence in his tone, but the smile doesn’t slip. If anything, it grows, “Just like that? No hesitation at all?” 

“It’s not like I haven’t considered it,” he tells her, shrugging a shoulder, “of course I have. I would be irresponsible not to, but you’re not going just stop talking to me, right?” 

“No, never.” 

He smiles at the venom in her declaration, as though not talking to him is unimaginable. “And I’m not going to just cut you off. No matter what happens, I think we’ll be okay.” 

“Hopefully better than okay,” Clarke says, taking the half step necessary to remove the last bit of space between them. 

With her body pressed against his, the tips of her hair silky in his fingertips, and each puff of her breath warm against his face, his ability to think clearly is severely restricted. Her lips hover invitingly barely a breath away and he nearly gives in to the temptation. His eyes flick up to meet hers and all he sees is happiness, “Did we talk enough?” 

Instead of answering, she does what he didn’t, pressing their lips together in one fluid motion. He responds back eagerly, meeting her movement for movement, consumed by her, and the hope that this is what his life can look like. 

————————————————————————————————

He’s both surprised and unsurprised to find that for the most part, everything between them is the same as it has always been. They still fall asleep wrapped around each other. She still looks to him when they are in a council meeting, silently communicating her frustration. He holds her hair back when she’s sick for a few days in a row, just as he would have done any other time. 

Yet, for as much of their relationship that has stayed the same, he can’t help but think that it all feels different. He still holds on just as tight at night, but now it’s just because he wants to and not because he’s worried it will end. When she looks at him now, there’s no attempt to hide her true feelings and when he goes to instinctively hold her hair back, he isn’t left worrying that he’s crossed some invisible line. 

There’s an ease to the dynamic between them now that hasn’t always been there despite the way they’ve always been able to move in sync and he loves it. 

They haven’t told anyone about the change yet and he’s not sure that he feels any urgency to. He’s pretty sure that most of the delinquents will figure it out on their own eventually and it seems to him like everyone else, namely Abby, has assumed they were together from the start. Really, the only two people he feels slightly compelled to fill in are Cas and EJ, but then he’s also not sure it’s actually necessary. 

If the eye-rolling and dramatic sighing matched only by the secretive smirking is anything to go by, Cas already knows which isn’t really a stretch since she’s witnessed him and Clarke snuggle up to sleep against each other for over a month now. He’s not sure if EJ knows, but he doesn’t think that he cares much either way. While he’s definitely grown attached to the two of them, switching between wanting them more and more instead of just his sister, he really doesn’t seem to care to know that there actually is a them.

It should be a surprise; he’s eight. He doesn’t need a label to count on the fact that he and Clarke are going to stick around. He can see that they love him, love each other, and that's enough. Bellamy watches him stick his tongue out, practicing with the wooden sword that he insisted Bellamy get after he saw him training with Lincoln a few days before and bits back a grin. He’s always liked kids, but there’s something about these two that just makes his heart warm.

“I used to want to be a warrior,” EJ tells him, swinging the weapon in his hand back and forth wildly, “but that was when I was little. Then I decided it was better to be a knight. Warriors fight, but knights protect people. They protect princesses and that’s what I’m meant to do so I’m going to be a knight. Then I’ll be able to keep Cas safe.” 

"I'm not a princess, EJ! I don't need you to protect me." Bellamy hears Cas yell from where she’s standing across the field with her own practice sword with Clarke. EJ twists around to face her, fire in his eyes, and a retort ready on his lips. By this point, Bellamy is a pro at recognizing the signs of a fight before they start and has even got pretty good at diverting them, “I’m sure you’re going to make a great knight, you’re already getting the hang of it.” 

A bright grin lights up his face and just like that his attention is back on Bellamy, “Uncle John used to always complain I had wicked aim whenever I slept with them.” 

“Oh yeah?” Bellamy asks, keeping his tone purposely light. Neither one of them have said much about their past in the last month and definitely nothing as specific as a person. He’s more than curious, but with Clarke's theory at the forefront of his mind, he knows better than to ask. 

“Yes,” EJ responds enthusiastically, without an ounce of hesitation, “He’s the best. Do you think I’ll see him again soon?” 

Bellamy feels a lump settle in his throat, knowing that it’s not likely that he will, but there’s something so innocently hopeful about the way he asked the question that Bellamy can’t bear to give him a realistic answer, “I don’t know.” 

“That’s what Cas says too,” he reveals, kicking at the ground and then swinging his sword through the cloud of dust that arises, “He was a knight too even though he pretended not to be sometimes. He was always protecting Aunt Morie even though she didn’t need it. She used to yell, John Murphy—” 

It happens so fast. One second EJ is happily recounting tales from his past and the next Cas is beside him, appearing almost out of thin air, only to be hit in the face by the end of EJ’s sword.

“Are you okay?” Bellamy asks almost instantly, dropping his own practice weapon on the ground and stepping closer to her. 

“Goddammit, EJ,” Cas curses instead of answering his question, pressing her hand against her nose as her eyes start to water involuntarily, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

“I didn’t mean too,” EJ cries, his own tears gathering in his eyes. Bellamy spots Clarke coming back towards them out of the corner of his eye so he redirects his path to wrap his arm comforting across the distressed boy’s shoulders. Clarke will be better at handling wherever injury she may have gotten anyways. 

“You didn’t think,” she reprimands harshly, stopping only because Clarke arrives at her side and starts to examine her face. 

Bellamy's eyes lock onto the mess of black running down her face and his world slows to a stop, “Your blood.” 

Cas freezes at his words, hearing his whispered utterance from several feet away. It’s only then that Clarke seems to register what he says, looking over her shoulder to him with one hand resting on the side Cas’ face to help stem the blood flow, “Bellamy, we talked about this... the blood alterations… the mountain—” 

“That blood alteration didn’t come from Mount Weather,” Bellamy tells Clarke confidently. He looks at Cas again who’s steadily avoiding his gaze, “it’s a grounder thing; all the commanders are chosen from people who have that blood.” 

He meets Clarke’s confused look, matching it with his own. She turns back to look at Cas, her movements carefully ordinary, “Do you have something you’d like to tell us?” 

Her eyes fly back and forth between him and Clarke as if trying to decide who is the better option. He can see the fear in her eyes, would be able to spot it even if he didn’t have EJ’s arms wrapping tightly around his waist like he’s scared to be pulled away, and he wants to alleviate it. More than anything, he wants to take that look off her face, but he forces himself to hold back for the moment. 

Eventually, her eyes meet his. He offers a small smile in support and she lets out a sigh, “Shit.”


	7. Cassandra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to everyone who’s commented so far. I am terrible at responding unless there’s a question for me to answer because I never quite know what to say, but every time I see a new one or a kudo, it makes my day. I hope you like the chapter, it's finally time for Bellamy and Clarke to get some answers.

Cas looks from Bellamy, and then back to Clarke, trying to figure out what she is supposed to say. Somehow, she needs to come up with some lie that is at least marginally more believable than the truth. Her heart races as they watch her expectantly. She opens her mouth, knowing that at the very least she needs to say something other than the curse she muttered in frustration when EJ suddenly takes the focus off her. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He’s still pressed up against Bellamy’s legs, half behind him, but he looks straight at her with his unfairly big brown eyes as he makes the apology, “I didn’t mean to cause problems.” 

Bellamy places a reassuring hand on his shoulder while Clarke looks fervently between her and EJ. Cas closes her eyes, blocking out his sad face, and then lets out a sigh. She should have seen this coming. It’s far from the first time that he’s asked her about Murphy and Emori. For all that he does understand about this, he doesn’t seem to have grasped that even if they were to find their adopted parents in this time, they would be _their_ Murphy and Emori. 

She probably should have insisted that they left after it was clear that there were no answers to be had about the second apocalypse, but it’s nice here, comfortable. It’s been years since she has anyone else around to help with EJ, let alone people offering to take care of her with as much insistence as Bellamy and Clarke. She let it make her complacent, but that’s not EJ’s fault and she shouldn’t take it out on him, “I know. It’s okay.” 

He nods his head in acceptance of her half-assed apology and then just like that, the attention is instantly back on her. She feels her confidence wither under their gazes, using every bit of restraint within her not to fidget while continually reminding herself all the reasons why them knowing puts her and EJ at risk. 

“It isn’t going to cause problems,” Clarke tells both of them, kindness and understanding in her eyes which makes Cas’ hair rise on the back of her neck, “Whatever you have to tell us isn’t going to change anything.” 

“You say that now,” Cas responds, forcing her voice to mimic the sarcastic tone that she grew up listening to. If she can just delay this conversation long even maybe she’ll be able to come up with the explanation she needs. Or maybe, her eyes drift to the tree line off in the distance, maybe if she can convince them not now, they will be able to slip away unnoticed. 

“We can trust them, Dandy. I’m sure,” EJ interjects on their behalf, instantly reminding her why she hasn’t already left. She’d like to think that he’d follow her willingly, but the reality is that she’s not sure. Over the last few weeks, he’s grown close to Bellamy and Clarke in a way that she didn’t think was possible. She looks at the surety in his eyes and feels a stab of bitterness. They have earned the kind of trust she spent a lifetime earning in what basically amounts to a blink. 

“I know you think that,” Cas responds, looking from one set of earnest brown eyes to the other and then looking away quickly, reminding herself to keep her temper. She needs time, more time, so she gets some in the only way she can think, “either way we can’t have this conversation here.” 

“Okay, that’s fine,” Bellamy says easily, not phased by her avoidance, “We can go back to the room or...” 

He continues to offer various suggestions for where they can go, but her attention is drawn to Clarke who’s watching her closely, her eyes narrowed slightly and her head tilted to the side. It's only once Bellamy stops talking and the silence grows loud between them that she looks back to him, unease heavy under her skin, “The room is fine.” 

While Bellamy looks surprised at her easy acceptance, after a quick moment and a meaning glance at Clarke, he nods in understanding and turns to walk back to their room, EJ’s hand in his. Cas starts to follow them slowly, an internal debate raging in her mind. 

_Can she leave EJ?_ That’s basically what it comes down to. He’d be happy here, she knows it. Happier than he would be with her probably, and she knows that they would take good care of him. At some point, he’ll probably spill the whole time travel thing, but would they even believe him? Even if they did, she’s not sure it would matter. He doesn’t have the same level of information that she does. 

“Running isn’t the answer,” Clarke says quietly, falling into step beside her. 

In an instant, Cas feels every single one of her defenses rise, but when she responds, she keeps her voice mild, “From what I gather, that’s precisely what you did.” 

Cas can see the comment land exactly as she intended it out of the corner of her eye as Clarke just manages to repress a wince. They continue for a while, each taking measured steps until Clarke must regain control of her emotions, “Which is how I know that it’s the wrong choice.” 

“Well, excuse me if I don’t take your word for it,” Cas snaps back, stopping suddenly and then watching with a stony expression as the boys disappear further in the distance. 

“You’re not going to leave, Cas.” 

“How would you know?” 

“Because if you were going to, you would have left weeks ago. You’re not going to leave EJ and you know that it’s good for him here so you stay,” Clarke answers with a sigh. Cas crosses her arms, looking for some protection against Clarke’s insightful words, but she makes no move to leave, “Besides, it would matter if you did. Bellamy would just follow after you. He doesn’t let people he cares about do things alone. He's big on the whole together thing.” 

“I don’t want to screw everything up,” Cas reveals her greatest fear to Clarke in a hushed whisper, “What if it changes things?” 

“Change doesn’t have to be bad,” Clarke answers after a moment. 

Even though she’s more than missed the point, Cas knows that what she’s saying is true. If she was going to leave, she would have done so already. Taking one last deep breath, she sends out a silent hope that she’s making the right call and then starts walking, “Okay, I’ll tell you about when we come from.”  


* * *

  
“Okay,” Cas starts for the third time in as many minutes. She’s seated on her bed, the blanket on her lap soft and familiar while Bellamy and Clarke sit on the bed opposite her, EJ squeezed between them, looking at her kindly. Everything is just about as ideal as she could ever have imagined it and yet the words still aren’t coming. _How do you tell people that their world is going to be destroyed?_

“Just spit it out,” Bellamy suggests, showing no outward signs of the nervous anticipation that must be coursing through him, “It will be easier that way and then you can think through everything out loud. We aren’t going to judge.” 

“Okay,” she says, nodding her head and then wiping her sweaty palms against the blanket. Her eye catches EJ, making no effort to hide his growing irritation and Cas feels her own serge of annoyance. Why couldn’t he have just blurted out that they are from the future and saved her this mess? The frustration is enough to block out her anxiety for a second and get her talking, “We are from the future.” 

Their eyes both widen in surprise or maybe confusion, but neither of them says anything. There are several beats with the same nothingness while Cas tries to resist the urge to snap until finally, Bellamy clears his throat, “Not a good one, I take it?” 

“You actually believe me?” 

Clarke shrugs her shoulders, “Nothing else so far has made a lot of sense either. Why not time travel?” 

“Because it’s fucking time travel,” Cas cries back, her outrage being rapidly increased by their calm. 

“Do you want us to not believe you?” Bellamy asks, fighting a grin, “We could pretend so that you have a chance to convince us.” 

Groaning, Cas lets her head fall into her hands. This is good. This is exactly what she wanted to happen, but it’s unexpected. Every single thought she’s had in the last 15 minutes about how to proceed suddenly seems irrelevant. 

“What happened?” Clarke asks softly, getting them back on topic, “I assume you two didn’t just accidentally travel back?” 

“No,” Cas answers after a moment, forcing herself to get it together, “the world was— it’s— everything was a mess so it just made sense to try and come back. To fix it.” 

“What are we fixing?” There’s nothing but determination in Clarke’s eyes. 

Cas pulls at a string on the blanket, indecision heavy on her shoulders. It feels wrong to tell them, but on the other hand, if she wants things to change, she needs to actually make changes. They can help her, maybe with them, she’ll actually be able to stop it all. 

“The nuclear reactors that went off the first time? They are still active and they start melting down. It was slow at first, there was almost nothing to indicate anything was wrong. There was less game, crops didn’t do as well, the weather was unpredictable. Then people started getting sick. Everyone thought it’s some kind of plague though. Eventually, people realized that it was the reactors so they tried to repair them, and they did, but it was too late. They end up blowing and the planet is consumed in a wave of fire.” 

For being told that their world as they know it is going to disappear in the not too distant future, they both react remarkably well. Clarke though, is the first to find her voice again, “So it was your blood alteration that saved you? Why didn’t they just give it to everyone?”

“I don’t know,” Cas responds, shrugging. She has known that their blood was different for as long as she can remember, but it never seemed different. Everyone around her had the same alteration and the one time she did bother to ask about it, Murphy and Emori both got the same tense look on their face. It was the kind of look that she did her best to avoid creating. “I don’t think they knew it was going to work.” 

Bellamy leans forward in his knees, irritation clear on his face for the first time, “Okay, I get that. Why the time travel… kind of, but why would they send two kids back to fix the future?” 

There’s a beat of uncomfortable silence where Cas doesn’t know what to say. It lasts so long that by the time she does talk, she suspects that Clarke at least has already figured it out, “We were the only two left.” 

“But where were your parents?” 

She can see the outrage in Bellamy’s eyes as he asks his question, can see the judgment as he makes assumptions about two people who had no choice in leaving them and Cas feels her defenses rise. She flicks her eyes over to Clarke before turning back to Bellamy, “Dead. Everything I told Clarke about them was true. I was five. Dad stayed back while we ran to protect us from the mobs, and then never caught back up. Mom died a few days after EJ was born.” 

“You were all alone for years?” Bellamy asks in horror. 

“No, we had Aunt Mori and Uncle—” EJ cuts in for the first time, turning to face Bellamy and patting his shoulder comfortingly, but Cas cuts him off before he can finish. 

“No, stop!” Cas cries out, lifting herself off the bed to cover EJ’s mouth in case he doesn’t stop on his own. 

He does stop, but he also turns to glare at her, “Why not? They know now.” 

“Because we don’t want to mess things up,” she tells him angrily. She glares back at him before letting out a huff and falling back to her bed, “Look, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing here. There wasn’t some guidebook for time travel rules when I was trying to make the stupid thing work, but it makes sense that we should limit the information they know.” 

Her eyes settle on EJ, still frowning at her. She’s pretty sure that she already exists here, they don’t seem to be too far back, but EJ definitely doesn’t and she’s not going to risk him not happening because he isn’t able to keep his mouth shut. 

“That does make some sense,” Clarke finally agrees and Cas lets out a sigh of relief. 

“I had to tell you about the reactors because we want to change that, but I’m not looking to change anything else. I don’t think we should change anything else,” she amends after a moment, “because, again, I don’t know the rules here, but that seems like the thing that will all blow up in our faces sooner than later.” 

“Okay we won’t ask, but just, you had someone, right?” Bellamy asks, concern written all over his face, “You were happy?” 

She thinks about Murphy’s face the day they realized that Emori wasn’t coming back or all the days after they were both gone when she wondered if they were actually going to run out of food before they managed to find more. She thinks about the dark days when sandstorms covered the surface for weeks on end, preventing them from leaving. 

But then she thinks about how they turned it into a game for EJ and how he jumped from surface to surface as fast as his stubby three-year-old legs could carry him, laughing his head off. She thinks about the quiet nights when Emori and Murphy taught her to read and then the nights, years later, when she did the same for EJ. She remembers the warmth of Emori’s hugs whenever she was upset and the pride in Murphy’s when she’d say something particularly sarcastic. 

It was good. It was bad. It was messy, but she doesn’t feel capable of explaining that at the moment so she gives him the answer that she knows he wants to hear, confident that it’s only a partial lie, “We were happy.”


	8. Clarke

Clarke waits until not only is EJ asleep beside her but also until Cas’ breathing has evened out to the rhythm where she knows for sure she’s asleep before she catches Bellamy’s eye and tilts her head towards the door. Bellamy nods, slipping out from underneath EJ, and then they both walk out the door as quietly as possible. 

“So, time travel...” Bellamy starts watching her with a grin. She has her face buried in his chest before he’s even got the rest of his statement out, needing it to suppress the sound of her laughter. He runs a hand down her hair as she tries to get control of herself, “I was going to say we believe them right, but maybe that was the wrong assumption.” 

“No, no, I do,” she says quickly, pulling back to look at him, “I meant what I said, nothing else has ever made complete sense... it’s just time-travel?” 

Bellamy just shrugs half-heartedly, “It’s not at all out of the realm of possibility. I mean think about the ancient Greeks, what would they have thought about a society of people who lived in space.” 

“That’s thousands of years though,” Clarke responds, smiling fondly at him, “from what they have said, they are only a few years from us, a decade or so at most. She seemed to imply that their parents were skykru. ” 

“Right, their parents,” he says, a frown back on his face, “She was lying about being happy, right?” 

“Oh totally,” Clarke says without hesitation, but then the concern on his face seems to deepen so she reevaluates, “It’s not— I’m sure there were moments where they were happy, but she basically grew up in a post-apocalyptic world-- more of a post-apocalyptic world, I’m sure there were challenges a lot of the time.” 

“Yeah, challenges,” he scoffs, “That’s one way to describe trying to raise your kid sibling alone. Or basically alone. Who does that? Who asks their kid to do that?” 

“You did,” she reminds him softly. 

“Which is why I know that it’s no life,” he runs a hand through his hair in irritation, “I love Octavia, I do, and the truth is, I wouldn’t change anything, but that’s also not— she never should have been my responsibility. What were their parents thinking? The world must have been a mess when they got pregnant with EJ, who brings a child into that?” 

She reaches out to place her hand on the side of his face, stopping his rant with a single touch, “Hey, you turned out fine and she seems to be fine too. Besides, she’s not alone anymore. She has us and EJ has us and we aren’t going to abandon them, right?” 

“Never.” 

“Okay then. We can’t change the past... or the future?” she half questions with a smile before continuing, “but we can make sure things are better from now on. I think we maybe already have and that’s only going to be truer now that we know.” 

“I can’t believe she’s been holding the fate of the world inside her all these weeks. That’s a lot of pressure for a 13-year-old,” he says before pausing in consideration, “Hell, it’s a lot of pressure for me and I’ve got a decade on her. You don’t happen to have any ideas about that do you?” 

“No,” she admits after a moment of hesitation. 

He smirks at her, his eyes twinkling in a way that makes her stomach flutter, “Comforting.” 

“We’ll figure it out,” she tells him, rolling her eyes for good measure. 

“Of course, we will,” he says like it’s the simplest thing in the world. He wraps an arm around her, “I’ve never seen a problem that we couldn’t solve together.”  


* * *

  
Over the next few days, both her and Bellamy try to dig up as much information about the reactors, what it was like the first time they went off, as sublty as possible without much success. They could definitely ask someone for help, she’s sure that Raven for one would have some interesting information on a nuclear breakdown that would be more helpful than anything they have found themselves. She also knows though that the minute she asks her friend anything, that will be the end of the secret and neither of them is at that point yet. 

They have got time, not an unlimited amount, but some. Cas doesn’t think that she’s more than a few years old in this timeline based on what she knows about the second end of the world. In fact, she’s not even sure she exists yet which means with the best-case scenario, they have upwards of five years. Worst case, they have still got two to three which means they have time to be careful. 

And they take that time. Cas seems more settled now that they know and the fate of the world isn’t on her small shoulders. EJ continues to be his happy self. Bellamy has almost stopped looking at her like she could disappear at any moment. For once, she feels like everything will work out and that peace gives her the freedom to not hunt down every scrap of information on the reactors she can find. 

In fact, it’s not until she catches her Mom watching them with a frown on her face for the third time in as many days that she feels compelled to continue her investigation. For all their attempted research on the reactors, they haven’t done any into the seemingly mundane warning signs that Cas mentioned and her Mom is the perfect place to start. 

Plus, if it means that she can address whatever issues that her Mom clearly seems to have, that’s just a bonus. She’s been home for well over a month now and the glares her Mom insists on sending in Bellamy’s direction every opportunity is so far past old. 

“Clarke,” her mother says, looking up in surprise, “What are you doing here? Is everything alright?” 

“Can’t I just come to say hi?” she asks back mildly, trying to ignore the stab of guilt that slices through her at the surprise on her Mom’s face. 

“Of course,” Abby responds with a tentative smile, gesturing to the mostly empty clinic around her, “Come on in.” 

They talk for a few moments, exchanging pleasantries like strangers, and Clarke is reminded why she's put this conversation off. 

“I’ve been thinking back to when we first landed here,” Clarke starts, focused on re-rolling the bin of bandages instead of looking at her Mother. She's gotten better at lying, she thinks, but she isn’t willing to bet on her Mom not seeing through her, “You were monitoring us, right? To see if the radiation levels were safe. What were you looking for?"

“We were observing all your basic vitals, looking for anything out of the ordinary,” she tells her easily, in doctor mode, but then she switches back, “Why the sudden interest?” 

Clarke shrugs her shoulders and then forces herself to take the chance meeting her Mom’s eyes, “Seems like a good thing to know more about... I was floundering back then, trying to run some sort of medical station.” 

“You did your best, Clarke. Besides, it’s not a responsibility that you’re going to have to undertake again any time soon.” 

“You don’t know that,” Clarke snaps back, letting her frustration with being treated like a child get the better of her for a moment. Her Mom’s eyes widen in shock, but Clarke doesn’t allow her to comment, continuing on with what she should have just said quickly, “You just don’t know… none of us do. The ground is unpredictable so I’d rather be prepared.” 

Even though her disapproval clearly evident, she starts listing off radiation symptoms, “It depends how severe the levels are, high ones and you’d see skin abrasions, bloody noses, and hair loss, but with lower levels, it’s harder to identify, dizziness, headaches, disorientation even just plain old exhaustion— Clarke, you’re feeling okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Clarke responds with as much patience as she can muster. It seems ridiculous to her though. A few nights where she wants to go to bed early coupled with one incident where she stood up too fast and lost her balance and suddenly, people are convinced she’s dying. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Ugh, you sound like Bellamy! Yes, I’m sure. It’s not that unreasonable for me to be tired with everything going on,” she answers firmly, not interested in having another person worry about her. Her Mom frowns at her and she’d think it was in concern, but she recognizes that expression, “There’s that look again! I know you aren’t Bellamy’s biggest fan, but he’s important to me, alright? And more importantly, he’s not going anywhere. I’m not saying you have to love him, but I do so you need to get over whatever issues you have with him.” 

“No. I mean, I'm not— am I thrilled that my eighteen-year-old daughter is pretty much living with a guy years older than her? Absolutely not, but that’s not the issue. God, Clarke… you should see the four of you together." 

“The four of us?” Clarke asks in confusion, “You mean Cas and EJ?” 

She nods her head yes, far too solemnly for Clarke’s liking, “You look like a family.” 

_We are,_ is the answer that instantly flies into her head, but she knows better than to say that out loud to her Mother who is evidently having issues with her growing up. Issues that seem absurd to Clarke after everything that’s happened. Not that that helps her much either. Left with nothing honest and good to say, she settles for a version of the truth, “We are just looking out for them.” 

“I mean, they aren’t your kids obviously, but if you squint,” she continues on as though Clarke had said nothing, “it almost seems like maybe they could be and that’s just insane… you and Bellamy are being careful, right?” 

“Nope,” Clarke responds quickly, throwing the bandage in her hand back into the bin half rolled, “We are not going to have this discussion.” 

Her Mom eyes her in exasperation, “I get that you are happy, playing family with him now, Clarke, but you are young and things change. A child is a serious commitment. One that you can’t just take back.”

“And on that note,” Clarke remarks, having the decency to wait to roll her eyes until after her back is turned, “I’m going to go.” 

“You need to take this seriously,” her Mom all but demands. 

“Look, I’m not taking my implant out any time soon so you can relax, okay,” Clarke tells her as nicely as she can, pausing a few steps from the door. 

She’s just about to open it when her Mom’s harsh voice stops her, “Clarke!” 

Counting to ten, she turns back around to face her Mom, “Yes?” 

“Bellamy never talked to you?” she asks, eyes wide in what Clarke thinks might be horror. 

“About kids?” she asks back confused. 

“No,” her Mom responds, horror clear now in her voice, “about the implants. It won’t work. You don’t have it. At least you shouldn’t. None of the other girls from Mount Weather have theirs and we believe that they were removed as part of your initial intake which would include…” 

Even though she’s sure her Mom continues to explain, Clarke doesn’t hear it, spinning around and walking out the door without another glance at her Mom. She’ll undoubtedly have to deal with that later, but for now, there’s a very different person who she’d like to have a discussion about this with. 

She finds Bellamy standing outside, thankfully alone so she feels fine pulling him away when she learns that EJ is doing school with some other kids and Cas is hanging out with Raven. For his part, he follows her into one of the many rooms left empty inside the Ark eagerly. There’s a grin on his face when she turns around, pressing the door closed with her back, which tells her he was expecting a totally different scenario when she grabbed his hand. 

Shaking her head, she pushes those kinds of thoughts away. Later, she promises herself, but for now, they need to talk about this. These last few weeks have been better than she could have ever imagined when she was wandering alone through the forest and she’s not going to take the risk of screwing that up just because she doesn’t want to have an uncomfortable conversation. 

“Clarke, what’s wrong?” he asks, the playful grin falling away. She shakes her head again, forcing a reassuring smile onto her face. It’s not that bad. It could have been but it’s fine. 

“Apparently. my implant was removed,” she tells him, getting straight to the point. 

“What?” 

She tilts her head to the side slightly, taking in the shock on his face. She didn’t think he had known, but still, “You didn’t know?” 

“Why the hell would I know?” he responds without any heat. All she can see is pure confusion mixed with surprise. 

“I don’t know, my Mom seemed to think you’d know. They realized soon after everyone got back here; they told the girls, they told their partners and I guess she must have figured it spread around,” she explains, but it’s like he’s not listening. She takes a step forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, “It’s going to be fine, Bellamy. It’s only been a couple of weeks. We’ll adjust and everything can go back to normal.” 

His hands settle on her waist, thumbs stretching to stroke across her stomach. She looks down, confused by the action, and then when she looks back up, his eyes are wide. When he speaks, his voice is so quiet she wouldn’t have heard him if she was one step further away, “Clarke, I think you’re already pregnant.”


	9. Bellamy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I had know real idea what I was talking about with all the pregnancy stuff so if it’s wrong… sorry? I am more interested in making situations as fun and fluffy as possible rather than being factual for this haha.
> 
> With that said, I hope you like the chapter. I’m almost finished writing the story, and once I do, I’ll post more often.

“What? No,” Clarke responds instantly, the denial flying out of her mouth without a second thought, but as the second's pass, he can see doubt start to creep in. Her face pales, and for a moment, he worries that she might pass out on him again, bracing himself to take her weight if she does. She seems to steady herself before he can suggest she sit down though, her eyes glazed over in contemplation, “The nausea.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees slowly, still stroking her side absentmindedly, “The exhaustion too. I don’t remember much from when my Mom was pregnant with O, but she was definitely tired more than I thought she should be.” 

“I haven’t had my cycle,” she continues lost in her own world, “and if it was taken out back in Mount Weather, I should have.” 

“Maybe it wasn’t taken out?” Bellamy offers, forcing a smile onto his face that probably comes out looking more like a grimace. It’s not that he doesn’t want to have a baby with her. In fact, she’s the only person he’d _want_ to do this with, but this is not how he wanted it to happen. After everything with Octavia, he promised himself that when it came time for him to have a kid, he’d make sure things were better, and while they are getting there, he’s not satisfied yet. 

Clarke looks at him fully for the first time, her own attempt at a smile on her face, but he can see the apprehension in her eyes. Yet even though the fear is clearly there, she makes no effort to step away from him, “You don’t really believe that.” 

“No,” he agrees reluctantly because they don’t lie to each other even when it might be the easier scenario, “I think you probably had it out before that first time.” 

“Okay,” she says nodding to herself before repeating it again and then again. 

“Clarke…” he starts even though he doesn’t really know what to say. Normally, he can read her pretty well, can tell if she’s happy or sad based simply on the shade of her eyes, but he’s got nothing now. He looks in her eyes, and all he can see is an endless ocean. Idly, he wonders what she sees in him, no more sure about his own emotional state than hers. 

She steps away from him, and he lets his arms fall to his sides, trying to not take the movement as a rejection. In his heart, he knows that it’s not. Clarke’s the kind of person who likes to run away to deal with her problems, she closes up when obstacles appear so the fact that she’s still standing only a few feet from him after everything is more proof of her love for him than anything else. 

“We don’t even know if it’s for sure yet,” she tells him, running a hand through her hair, “I don’t think you’re wrong, but until we know for sure, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.” 

He nods his head in agreement even though he’s not exactly sure what he’s not supposed to be doing. Is he not supposed to worry? He’s never been very successful at not doing that when it comes to the people who count. Is he not supposed to get upset, to stress over something that might not even exist? 

Or is he not supposed to start getting attached because regardless of how unprepared he might feel, from the second the possibility hit him, there’s been a child with his freckles on her nose and Clarke’s smile on her lips hovering at the edge of his mind, and despite everything, he’s starting to fall in love with that picture. 

“Okay,” he says, shaking his head to clear it, “What now?” 

A grimace settles over her face, the first true one in the entire conversation, “We need to find out for sure... I’d say just try and wait for Jackson to be around without my Mom, but since we were just talking about the implant when I ran out of there...” 

“She probably already suspects,” Bellamy surmises, an uncomfortable feeling settling in his stomach quite unlike anything else so far. He’s never been able to avoid Abby with everything involved in leading, and even if he could, he probably wouldn’t because it would give her too much satisfaction, but damn if he didn’t wish she wasn’t the main doctor right now. Still, he’s not going to let that scare him away, “Okay, let’s go see her.” 

“Just like that?” 

He shrugs, “I’d rather know, and she’s the person who can do that for us...” 

“True.” 

“And she’s probably not going to imprison me.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Clarke says teasingly, letting out a huff of laughter in the exact way he hoped. He reaches out a hand in offering, and she takes it easily, holding on tightly as they walk the small distance back to medical. 

“Clarke! Where did you run off to,” Abby calls out accusingly when Clarke opens the door before stopping suddenly when she sees him walking behind her, “Bellamy.” 

“Hi,” he responds, trying to project an air of ease that he doesn’t feel as he follows Clarke to one of the examination tables. 

Abby watches him sternly, eyeing their hands. He starts to pull his back, bending to the pressure of her glare, but Clarke holds steady until eventually, Abby turns her gaze back to her daughter, “You left before I could check if you have the implant still.” 

“I know,” Clarke says without the shame that he feels like Abby wants her to have, “you can look but...” 

“But?” Abby questions, an edge of annoyance creeping into her tone at Clarke’s delay. 

Clarke opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She twists to look at him, eyes begging for assistance so he lets out a sigh. Abby has never really liked him anyway, “but we think she’s already pregnant.” 

“Yeah, that,” Clarke confirms after a moment, breaking the silence that follows his declaration. 

There are another few seconds of tense silence where Abby looks back and forth between them until her eyes once again settle on Clarke, and she lets out an exasperated huff, “You wouldn’t know yet. You’d barely be able to tell with a test let alone based on symptoms. You’ve only been back like a month and a half, you would at most be 6 weeks.” 

“I’m actually thinking more like 12,” Clarke responds with confidence that he most definitely doesn’t feel, “After I escaped but before I left…” 

Bellamy can feel Abby’s eyes on him, but he keeps his attention on Clarke, not caring to see whatever emotion is being directed at him. He has his issues with Abby, the way she rules, the privileged outlook she has on it all, and the way she seems to easily dismiss the worth people may have simply because they aren’t like her, but there’s also the whole Clarke element of it all. 

While he doesn’t know what she thinks his relationship with Clarke is exactly, and he’s never cared enough to ask, he is certain that this new information is creating some elaborate narratives in her head. After all, Clarke left, and she already blamed him for her leaving. Finally giving in, he meets her eyes, and all of his suspicions are confirmed. Her gaze is accusatory as though he was the root of all Clarke’s problems and not the fact that she was sent down to a volatile planet with nothing. 

Still, he doesn’t say anything. He holds her gaze steadily and waits for her to begrudgingly move on like he knows she will, silently promising himself that he and Clarke will do better as parents than what they received. Not that it will be a hard bar to surpass, at least on the maternal front. He thinks that Clarke’s dad was okay from the little she’s mentioned about him. 

“Okay,” Abby says, and it’s like a switch has gone off turning her from a disproving parent to a professional doctor, “If you’re that far along, let’s just do an ultrasound to see.” 

She doesn’t even bother checking for the implant, instead of turning around to gather whatever equipment she needs from the back of the room. While she’s only gone for a couple minutes, it’s enough time for him to wrap his arm around Clarke, pull her into a half hug.

“Whatever issues she has with you are really just problems she has with me that are easier to blame you for,” Clarke whispers into his chest before pulling away and settling herself in the bed as Abby makes her way back towards them. 

He doesn’t get the chance to say anything privately back so he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. Instead, steps up beside her, grabs her hand, and smiles down at her. It doesn’t matter what Abby thinks, not really, not when he has Clarke showing him every day how much she cares about him. Plus, he’s got more pressing things to worry about at the moment as Abby lifts Clarke’s shirt and places a device against her lower stomach. 

That fact is made abundantly clear when a loud whirring noise fills the room a few minutes later, and Clarke lets out a gasp. For one brief moment, he is confused as his brain works to process the sound; eventually, though, it becomes clear. Thump, thump, thump. The sounds of a steady heartbeat. His child’s heartbeat. He feels his own breath catch in his throat. 

Clarke squeezes his hand, bringing him back down to earth. His attention shifts to her face, but her eyes are glued to the screen that Abby has positioned within her view. He follows her gaze and is met with a grainy black and white image. Blinking, he tries to make sense of it, most of his attention still drawn to the sound of the heartbeat until he is finally able to make out a head, body, and what he thinks are some tiny arms and legs. 

“That’s their head,” Clarke explains, her voice rough with emotion as she stretches a finger out to point for him, “their body, their arms, and their legs.” 

“They are so little,” Bellamy says with a gasp leaning forward to see better. He knows it makes sense, Clarke isn’t even showing yet, and he has enough recollection of Octavia being born to remember that she seemed tiny even in his child-sized arms, but looking at the screen in wonder they just seem so impossibly small. 

“They actually aren’t,” Abby interjects not exactly harshly, but not warmly either, “Your estimate was right, I’d put you at 12 weeks.” 

Clarke hums in acknowledgment, probably because her eyes are still glued to the image, and she couldn’t care less, but also probably because she has no desire to give her mother more details.   
“The heart rate is strong too.” 

“So, everything looks good?” Bellamy questions a twinge of worry in his tone. 

“Everything looks great, Bellamy,” she reassures him the tiniest bit of warmth creeping into her voice.  


* * *

  
The weight of it all doesn’t really hit him till a few days later, but by that point, the shock of it all has worn off enough that he doesn’t feel oppressed by it. In fact, it settles rather familiarly onto his shoulders. While he still plays an active role in the council, too stubborn to let it go when he knows that there are voices who wouldn’t be heard without him, and to a lesser extent Clarke, there, he’s not as involved as he once was, especially with Jaha’s return. Taking care of people is a comfortable role for him in all senses, but he’s always done better with specific individuals then the masses.

Very little changes between him and Clarke. He still worries, but at least now he knows what he’s worrying about which makes it all a slightly easier. They decide not to tell anyone yet, choosing to wait until everything feels more stable around them, and that ensures that almost everything else stays the same too. Life is just as busy for them as it has always been, only now, they are walking around with a secret. Two secrets actually, one infinitely more enjoyable than the other. 

He feels the looming threat of the future more acutely now. It's not that the baby changes things, he was determined from the start to change things for Cas and EJ, Octavia, Clarke, and everyone else. Before it felt like something that could be dealt with in time though, and now, time feels limited. They have a little under six months and he would really like their child to be born into a planet not doomed to be destroyed by radiation. He can tell that Clarke feels the same renewed sense of urgency as they spend night after whispering potential plans in the darkness of their room. 

In the time in between, when he’s not working with the council, trying not to needlessly argue with Kane or Jaha while avoiding Abby’s glares, training with the guard, playing with EJ, or talking with Clarke, he spends a lot of time thinking about the idea of parents. The kind of example that he had, the type of parent he wants to be, the kind of half parent he already is. 

For all the struggles Octavia and he had during those first days on the ground, they seem to be doing good now. She’s found her place with Lincoln and the grounders while he’s accepted that her moving on doesn’t mean she’s leaving him. EJ is one of the happiest kids that he’s ever seen and that only seems to grow with every new day. 

Even though he fell into the role with the two of them, he’s starting to think that maybe he’s done okay; they’re happy, but he's not sure that necessarily translates. How does it all change when it’s actually supposed to be his job? He'd say not at all, the fundamentals have to be the same, but he also thinks that there could be a big difference. 

While Cas has definitely done better since she opened up about the future, she still seems to be troubled. He wonders as he watches her picking at her food, or tossing in bed trying to sleep at night if she feels the missing sting of parents more sharply. For Octavia, and it sounds like for EJ, they never had a shot at the picturesque family, but from what he’s gathered, she did. Has she been tearing herself up over the desire to go try to find them? 

Or is it the other end of the spectrum? He sees the look on her face sometimes when EJ will go to Clarke instead of her in excitement; not jealousy like the first time, he caught her watching the pair, but rather guilt like it should be her who takes care of him. He's more than familiar with the pressure of ‘my sister, my responsibility,’ and that’s not something he wants for her, not if he can prevent it.

The urge to talk to her, to try and find out what’s bothering her lingers with him for days until finally, the right moment occurs, and he seizes it. After all, he doesn’t have to wait another six months to start taking care of people, not when Cas is sitting in front of him clearly in need of someone.


	10. Cassandra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to have this out yesterday, but then time got away from me. It kind of works better though. Let some fluffy sweetness heal whatever the hell that was last night. 
> 
> Three more chapters to go! As always, thanks for reading.

Letting out a sigh, Cas watches people move around, going from job to job, living their lives, and tries to find that same will within herself. It is not that she doesn’t want to live, to be a part of the community, mostly, it’s that she doesn’t know how to. While things have been slightly better over the last couple of weeks now that she’s no longer holding the fate of the world alone, everything isn’t better. At least not as good as she secretly hoped that it would be. 

Bellamy and Clarke are as present as they have always been, and they have assured her more than once that she doesn’t need to worry anymore, but she can’t seem to stop. The uncertainty of the future and the responsibility to make sure it doesn’t come to pass is an unrelenting weight on her shoulders. It might actually be her past that is holding her back, though. 

They have been back here for nearly two months now, and she’s still just as unsettled around people as she was those first couple of days. She feels twitchy like there’s an itch underneath her skin, but she can’t seem to figure out where it’s coming from. There are people here, more food and freedom than she could have ever imagined. She should be happy. 

She should be happy, and she is, at brief moments, when it’s just the four of them in their small room, and she is able to pretend the world outside doesn’t exist, but it never lasts. The door opens eventually, and the feeling of unease returns. 

The truth is she misses home. She misses the blank white walls of the lab and the disgusting powder that they would eat when there was no food to be found. She misses Murphy and Emori in a way that she hasn’t ever let herself. Really, she never had the time to mourn their loss before. She misses her parents. 

A shadow falls over her, and she squints up into the sun, unsurprised to see Bellamy standing next to her. "Do you mind if I sit?”

Instead of answering, she just rolls her eyes because that was so not a question, dropping the locket she had been unconsciously playing with, back under her shirt. If she’s learned anything over the last few months, it’s that he’s going to sit whether she wants it or not. It’s honestly impressive that he lasted this long before intervening. Bellamy is not good at letting things be, a fact which he proves as he settles down onto the ground beside her. 

“It looks like we are going to get a great sunset," she says, mostly to avoid discussing whatever it is he came to talk about sure that she’s not going to like it. 

“Cas.” 

She doesn’t turn to look at him even though she can hear the disapproval in his tone. Whatever this is, she’s not going to make it easy on him. She keeps her voice cheerily light, “Yes.” 

“How are you doing?” he asks, and she feels a lump grow in her throat against her will. She expected him to be annoyed at her purposeful ignorance, at least exasperated, but instead, he just sounds concerned. 

Pushing past the lump, she tries to make her voice as snarky as possible, “Just great, waiting for the world to start falling apart is super fun.” 

“You know that we are going to figure that out, right?” he responds after a thoughtful moment, “Me and Clarke, we are masters at getting out of seemingly impossible situations. You don’t need to worry about it, we’ve got it.” 

“How do you know?” she asks back, her internal turmoil finding a release in anger, “I’ve never been able to count on anyone else.” 

She clamps her teeth down quickly, but it’s too late; the admission is already out. She doesn’t know why now, not when they have had almost this exact conversation multiple times before, and it doesn’t really matter. There's no taking it back. Waiting for him to call her on it, though, is unbearable. Still, she keeps her mouth firmly shut, not willing to give anything else away by accident. 

Seconds turn into minutes until eventually, she isn’t able to resist the urge to look at him. She finds that he’s already looking at her with a troubled line across his brow, which is more than enough to make her bring her eyes back to the setting sun. After that, it’s worse until finally, he lets out a breath and speaks. 

“What does EJ stand for?” 

“What?” she asks in surprise. Out of all the things that Bellamy could have asked, that wasn’t at all what she expected. 

“Is it something junior?” 

“No,” she says slowly as the reasoning behind his question takes shape in her mind, and she lets out a huff of annoyance. If he wants to find their parents, he could just ask. Although, she’s not sure why he would care to, given the dislike he already seems to have for them. Since her answer doesn’t give anything away, though, she decides to humor him for a bit longer, “Evander Jacob.” 

“Oh right,” Bellamy responds, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. He pauses for a second, thinking, and then continues, “I know you are worried about messing things up, and I respect that, but I think if finding them is something that you want, we could do it carefully.” 

“It’s not something I want,” she snaps back quickly. Bellamy watches her steadily, kindness in his eyes, and she feels a rush of regret. He’s only trying to help. Rubbing a hand across her face, Cas tries to get control of her emotions enough to explain her reaction. “I know you don’t really believe me, but it’s honestly not something that’s a big deal to me. They have been gone for as long as I can remember; I don’t think about them that much… I miss them, but it’s more like I miss the idea of them because that’s how they exist to me.” 

He nods his head contemplatively, watching her like he wants to understand even though he can’t, “What about your adoptive parents then? The ones you were with after, do you want to try and find them instead?” 

She lets out a sigh, already exhausted by this conversation, but she forces herself to consider the question because once again, he’s just trying to be kind. While she doesn’t really have a hope of finding her parents among the thousands of people alive right now, if she tried, she could probably find Murphy. She knows that he was on the Ark at some point, so the chances are that someone here would recognize the name; part of her thought that he might be here, but he’s not, and it probably needs to stay that way. 

“No,” she finally decides, “It would just create issues, and besides, it’s not— missing them is not the problem.” 

“Okay,” he says, accepting her answer with ease. For a second, she thinks that she might be free from this heart to heart, but then he turns to look at her again, “What is the problem then?” 

As tempting as it is to brush him off, to tell him that it’s none of his business, she finds that she doesn’t want to. She holds his gaze for a moment and then looks away, embarrassed, “It’s stupid.” 

“I don’t think it matters,” he responds, bumping his shoulder against hers, “whether it’s stupid or not, I still want to hear it.” 

Biting down on her lip, she debates the merits of sharing, but even when she’s resigned herself to opening up, she still can’t seem to find the words, “I just—” 

He smiles at her softly and then looks out into the city below them, “You know I miss life on the Ark sometimes. Not— I don’t want to go back to that time. It was awful, worrying every day whether Octavia would be caught, what would happen if she was. What would happen if she wasn’t, and she had to spend the rest of her life trapped within the four walls of our tiny home, but I still wake up some days missing it.” 

“Why do you think you do?” she asks in a timid whisper when it’s clear that he’s finished for the moment, “It makes no sense, right? It’s better here. You should be happy here.” 

A smile slides onto his face, which tells her that he clearly knows that they aren’t talking about him, but she’s beyond caring at this point. If he has the answers to her problems, she’ll gladly take them. “I am happy here, with you two, with Clarke, unbelievably deliriously happy, but I don’t think it has anything to do with what’s better. For a very long time, my life on the Ark was all I knew, and even though it was hard, it was familiar, and there’s a comfort that comes from the familiar.” 

“So, you miss it just because it was what you’re used to?” 

“Yes and no. That’s definitely part of it, but I also— there was a while there where all I knew was a life of struggle, and that kept me going. I needed that constant fear to function even though I hated it. This is confusing,” he says, cutting himself off with a self-deprecating laugh, “At some point, I’ll get better at this.” 

“You’re doing fine,” she tells him when he remains flustered. 

“My point,” he tells her, regaining his momentum, “is that your life has been hard, Cas, you’ve needed to take on a lot of responsibility that you should not have had to and now, even though that pressure is off you, it’s hard for you to shake the feeling that you need to be doing something. That’s understandable, it’s going to take time for you to adjust, it’s taken me a lot of time, and that’s okay. We aren’t going away.” 

She lets out a heavy sigh, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Bellamy shifts a little, and it’s clear that he wants to hug her, but doesn’t want to push her, so she leans into his side, silently giving her permission. As he wraps an arm around her shoulders, and she allows herself to bury her face in his chest, she feels the itching under her skin settle. 

While Cas doesn’t know if she fully trusts what he’s saying, doesn’t know if she can believe that they aren’t going to just up and disappear on her like everyone else in her life, she’s starting to, and maybe that’s enough for now.  


* * *

  
They sit like that for a while, soaking up the last rays of the sun before it disappears for the night, and then as the stars start to take its place, he points out a few constellations, telling her the stories behind them with a gentle whisper. She knows most of them, grew up reading about them, but she doesn’t tell him that, happy to listen to the rumble of his voice, only offering the occasional nod in support. 

She doesn’t say anything until he stops, suddenly as he points out Cassiopeia, “It’s named after a Queen who boasted about her unrivaled beauty... I wonder if that’s where you got your name?” 

“No,” she says, shaking her head, “It’s actually Cassandra. That’s why EJ calls me Dandy sometimes. He couldn’t get his ‘S’ sounds for a long time, and it used to make him mad.” 

“Oh, that’s so much better,” he tells her with what, she can’t help think, is an absurd amount of excitement. He lets out a huff of laughter, turning his back on the stars to face her fully, “Actually, it’s perfect given everything. Do you know Cassandra’s story?” 

“She has a story?” Cas asks, catching on to his enthusiasm. She thought that she knew all of them. 

He smiles brightly at her, “Yes! She was a princess, the daughter of the King and Queen of Troy, who was said to be so beautiful that Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy.” 

Her lips twitch as the irony of the name settles over her, “She knew the future.” 

“Yes,” Bellamy says, amusement alight in his eyes, “And then she didn’t care for Apollo the way he wanted her to, so he cursed her so that no one would believe what she had to tell them because, of course, no Greek myth is complete without a tragic curse.” 

“Of course not,” she replies, rolling her eyes with a smile on her face. “I’m surprised that I’ve never heard that before. We had this book growing up that seemed to have all of them. I was told that they used to be my favorite, they were EJ’s too...” 

As if called by magic, he suddenly appears, running up the hill with Clarke a few steps behind and then lands in a heap on Bellamy’s lap, laughing. Bellamy looks down at him with a smile on his face. 

“We found you,” EJ tells them happily, sprawled half over Bellamy, half over her. 

“You did,” he says to EJ, running a hand through his hair before turning his attention to Clarke, “It’s probably late, sorry. We were talking, and I lost track of time.” 

For a second, Cas thinks that all her newfound peace is going to disappear, that she’ll start feeling like the outsider again, but then he turns his attention back to her with the same look on his face and the doubts quiet. He isn’t sorry that they were out here. 

Clarke comes to a stop a few steps behind where they are sitting, “It’s fine, we were just coming to say goodnight.” 

"Oh right, of course. Night, EJ.” He runs his hand through EJ’s curls again, and Cas notices for the first time that he’s already nearly asleep. He looks up behind her, probably doing the eye conversation thing with Clarke, “Night, Clarke." 

"Night Bellamy. Love you," EJ says slowly, getting to his feet, and Cas feels a stab of disappointment. EJ has been saying it to both of them for over a month now, but she still hasn’t been able to. Maybe if she wasn’t so closed off, she’d be able to feel more comfortable here. 

"I love you too, kiddo." 

EJ pauses, standing in front of them when it’s clear that Bellamy isn’t going to say anything else, "Aren't you going to tell Clarke you love her too?" 

She feels Clarke stiffen beside her and turns to look at Bellamy, who has hesitancy written all over his face. Looking back and forth between the two, Cas tries to understand what’s happening. She knew that the two of them were in love from almost the first moment she saw them together, it can’t be that they haven't said it to each other, and that seems to be exactly what has happened. 

The hesitance surrounding Bellamy seems to fall away as he stares directly at Clarke and Cas feels like she knows what’s going to happen before it does, Clarke too, if her shaky inhale is anything to go by, "I love you." 

“Love you too,” Clarke says softly, emotion clear in her voice, and a blindingly bright smile lights up Bellamy’s face. 

As she watches the two of them grin happily at each other, she thinks maybe she’s not a lost cause after all. If it took them, however, many years to say it to each other, it is not so bad that she can’t yet. She’ll get there eventually. As Bellamy said, she just has to give herself time.


	11. Chapter 11

Despite everything that’s happened in the last couple of months, Clarke can easily say that she’s happy. Somehow, she’s managed to settle in her life here, and it’s a good life. Everyone who she cares about is at least reasonably content, their settlement is turning into more of a home, Bellamy has been talking about turning those plans they made for cabins into a reality with increasing enthusiasm. Everything is good, and she’s at least relatively confident that it will stay that way. 

There are still issues, of course, the mentality of the Ark hadn’t just disappeared when they landed on the ground, and then there is whatever enlightenment Jaha seems to have found, not to mention the threat of the reactors which lingers in her mind at all times. The peace they established with the grounders appears to be holding, though. Altogether, everything is better than she expected it to be. Still, when Jaha approaches her sitting on the ground watching EJ and Cas practice with their swords, not even a week into his return, she is instantly filled with dread. 

“Clarke, could I have a word with you?” Jaha asks, appearing as if out of nowhere with his Chancellor smile on his face. 

“Of course,” she answers after a beat too long, taking the time to glance quickly at Bellamy, sitting beside her. She looks back at Jaha when he doesn’t continue, the sparkle of his teeth sending a wave of unease down her spine that she refuses to show, and makes the offer that she’s sure he’s waiting for her to make, “Do you want to go somewhere?” 

“That would be perfect,” he says before turning to Bellamy as she gets to her feet slowly, “You as well, Mr. Blake, if you can get away.” 

She shares another look with Bellamy, silently asking him if he knows what’s going on, but it seems like he hasn’t any idea either. Still, he follows her lead and gets to his feet, “Yeah, I’m free, at least for a while... Cas, are you guys good?” 

Cas nods and gives him a cheeky thumbs up to which he shakes his head in amusement, turning to her. She grabs hold of his hand, and they both follow after Jaha, who has already started to make his way back towards the Ark, apparently just trusting that they will follow after him. 

“Oh joy, King Jaha has returned,” she hears Bellamy mutter under his breath, and she has to stifle her laughter, nudging her shoulder against his. 

As they continue, she purposely slows her pace, wanting the chance to talk with him alone before they hear whatever Jaha wants, even if they only get a few minutes, “What do you think this is about?” 

“He probably wants to indoctrinate us into his cult.” He says it jokingly, but it doesn’t really land. She twists her head to look at him, and it’s clear from the grimace on his face that he thinks it might be an actual possibility and not one that he is happy about which, really, isn’t surprising. 

So far, he has been relatively tame about sharing his new faith, but she’s noticed something different about him, something off. He's not the same man she grew up around. There's an edge to him now, an unpredictability that she doesn’t like. Not that she’s spent a lot of time around him. In the last week, she’s only been to one council meeting in her attempts to avoid her Mom’s judgment filled eyes; maybe, she’s read the situation wrong. It's possible, “Maybe? Is that actually something he’s doing? Do we need to be worried?” 

His steps slow even further as reluctance fills his form. She's about to push the subject when he lets out a sigh and continues himself, “I caught him speaking to Jasper a couple days ago and then Raven the day after, it seems like he’s more focused on converting the original 100 right now.” 

“Are they ok—” 

“Yes,” he reassures her quickly, “I talked to both of them. Raven was obviously more forthcoming than Jasper, but they both seem fine. Or at least as fine as they can be. Not looking to join escape reality and join a cult anytime soon. Everything is fine.” 

“So far,” she says, trying not to resist the urge to glare. 

“So far,” he amends, tilting his head to the side, in a half-apology. 

“You should have told me.” 

“And I would have if I thought it was a big enough issue to need your attention,” he tells her softly, coming to a halt and stopping her with him when it’s clear that she’s still frustrated, “Hey, I would have! He must have caught me watching when he went to approach Harper yesterday because he hasn’t tried to do anything today.” 

Pushing her free hand through her hair, Clarke lets out a breath, “That’s not really the point— you and me, we are a team, and that can’t change. Not because of the baby, not because of anything. If you see something concerning, you talk to me, and we figure it out. Together.” 

“Understood,” he responds with a bashful smile that she can’t resist returning, especially when the smile turns into a smirk, “I guess we better go deal with him then, together. He’s totally going to ask us to join his cult.” 

“Yup.” 

“Great,” he responds sarcastically, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close, “Let’s get this over with.” 

By the time they catch up to Jaha, he’s already sitting in one of the conference rooms, just staring off into the distance. It’s more than a little disconcerting. She squeezes Bellamy’s hand once for comfort before letting go and moving to sit across from Jaha. He looks over to her before it seems like he should, turning with the same eerie smile, “Please take a seat, we have much to discuss.” 

“It appears so,” she responds congenially, pulling out the chair and sitting down while Bellamy makes himself comfortable leaning against the wall instead of in the other seat, “What’s on your mind?” 

“I’d like to offer you two the key to eternal happiness, a chance to join the City of Light,” he tells them, his hands folded in front of him and a serious tilt to his brow. 

She hears Bellamy shift behind her, and she can tell that he wants to shut down this entire conversation quickly, but he’s going to let her take the lead. She looks at him closely, and the shiftiness she noticed before is even more apparent. It makes her want to end this too, but this seems like too good of an opportunity to waste. If they are going to figure out what his motion is, they need to know more, “Why would we want that?” 

Jaha’s smile grows like that was the exact question he wanted to be asked, which leaves Clarke feeling vaguely uncomfortable, “The City of Light is a beautiful place. Everyone levels in peace there with no hate, no pain, and no envy.” 

“It sounds too good to be true,” Bellamy says, skepticism heavy in his voice. 

“I know, but I’ve seen it, and it’s all that and more,” Jaha responds, turning his attention to Bellamy quickly before turning back to her, “All the hard choices you’ve had to make, Clarke, the massacre in the Mountain, it would all be erased. There would be no more need for fighting.” 

Bellamy steps forward to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, which goes a long way to calming the flash of anxiety that hit her at the mention of Mount Weather. She may be happy now, but it’s going to be a long time before the ghosts of that moment stop haunting her. A reality which she’s sure that he’s familiar with. The calculating purpose behind the causal mention hits her, replacing the anxiety with annoyance. Before she can get a word out, though, Bellamy has already beat her to it. 

“So, is that the technique then? Take a person’s worst moments and use it against them.” 

“I don’t seek to use anything, Mr. Blake,” he corrects, “I am only giving you the facts as they are. In the City of Light no one has to suffer. I would think that would appeal to you, particularly after everything that your sister has to endure.” 

She feels Bellamy stiffen, and she wishes that she had just walked away when Bellamy wanted because how dare he, “How dare you? Come here and use that when everything that happened to her was on your orders! You’re calling this place beautiful, but all it does is fix your mistakes.” 

“Okay, how about this then,” Jaha responds, with iciness in his voice, “together, using the City of Light, we can save the human race.” 

“Yeah, okay, we are done,” Bellamy says, not even bothering to hide the fact that he’s rolling her eyes as she gets out of her chair. 

“Oh, really?” Jaha says, but when she stops to turn and look at him, he’s not talking to either of them, “How interesting.” 

“He’s actually lost it,” Bellamy says in disbelief under his breath. She’s inclined to agree, but before she has the chance to say that, Jaha is back looking at them again. 

“I would have thought the survival of the human race would have been more important to both of you, especially with a child on the way.” Her hand falls to her still flat stomach of its own accord before she can think better of it and Jaha lets out a self-satisfied grin, “Come sit back down, and let’s talk about this.” 

“How?” Bellamy demands, moving back towards the table, but still, refusing to sit down, “Abby wouldn’t have told you.” 

_No, she wouldn’t have,_ Clarke thinks as she follows him after him hesitantly. Her Mom might not be pleased, but she’s a professional above everything and telling anyone her medical information would be a clear violation. She looks at Jaha again, noticing for the first time an odd gleam to his eye, “She didn’t.” 

“Of course, she didn’t,” Jaha says, looking at her like she’s his star pupil, “The City of Light is a virtual reality where human consciousness is stored, free to live without the horrors of life here. Allie is the artificial intelligence that builds and maintains the place. She is the one who told me.” 

“And how did she know?” Clarke can’t help but ask, her mind reeling.   
Jaha looks off into the distance again before nodding once and turning his attention back to them, “Subtle weight gain, a change in body posture, and the faint sound of a rapid heartbeat.” 

“She’s here?” 

“Yes,” Jaha says, answering Bellamy’s question as though it wasn’t asked in horror, “she’s always with me now.” 

A shudder goes down Clarke’s spine, but she forces herself to focus. She has a nagging feeling that this is going to be important. “Okay, but how exactly does this save the human race?” 

“Yeah,” Bellamy agrees, “I get that we aren’t perfect, but we aren’t about to all kill each other.” 

The second that Bellamy finishes speaking, she knows for certain that they have planned right into his hand. Something is coming, she’s just not sure what, “It won’t be humanity killing each other. The reactors that triggered the first apocalypse are breaking down. Within a few months, the entire earth will be soaked in a layer of radiation that will be too strong for anyone to survive.” 

She sucks in a surprised gasp as Jaha watches snugly, thankful in the back of her mind, that the reaction is explainable. She looks at Bellamy out of the corner of her eye and sees a similar expression. On his face. A few months? Either Cas was really wrong about the timeline or then coming back changed things. Or they knew about the reactors before and just didn’t do enough to fix the problem. There has to be a reason their parents were messing around with blood alterations. 

Hundreds of thoughts fly around in her head, but the one she keeps coming back to is that this is exactly the break they were looking for. This is their chance to find out about the reactors. She meets Bellamy’s eyes only to realize that he’s come to the same conclusion.   
He smiles softly at her and she smiles back, nodding her head slightly and squaring her shoulders. Turning back to Jaha, she fills her voice full of fearful reluctance, “Why would they be breaking down now?” 

Jaha smirks back at her in a look she’s sure is supposed to speak of fatherly reassurance, and she knows that if they play this right, they will have all the information they need.  


* * *

  
“That was...” 

“Completely insane?” Bellamy finishes for her once they are back outside, running his hand through his hair again in confusion. 

“I was going to say, not what I was expecting, but that works too,” she says with amusement in her voice despite everything, “and the thing is it has to be—” 

“True,” he cuts in with a grin that makes her want to laugh. 

“Exactly,” she says, reaching forward to smooth a piece of his hair down, “It has to be right?” 

“How else would he know about the reactors?” 

“He wouldn’t,” she responds simply, “he wouldn’t have known about the baby either, but if he has access to some AI who can figure out that I’m pregnant from looking at me, it stands to reason that the AI would also know about the reactors.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, pausing to look around as they return to the field that they were in an hour ago and neither Cas nor EJ are anywhere to be seen, “Where did they go?” 

There’s no obvious worry in his voice, but she still feels a twinge of concern, not hesitating at all to call out to Miller when she spots him, “Hey Miller! Where did the kids go?” 

“Raven!” he calls back, “She was going to blow something up and thought that they would want to see it.” 

Bellamy lets out a sigh, but she can see the amusement behind it when she looks over at him as they start the walk to Raven’s workshop. They are almost all the way there by the time she finally figures out what he’s fiddling with. The chip. 

“This actually works,” she says, “We can give that to Raven, and maybe she’ll be able to figure out how to take this AI down before she does any major damage.” 

“Sounds like a good plan,” he agrees halfheartedly, and if she didn’t know better, she might think that he’s considering taking it. She’s about to pause to question him when he explains himself, “I think we are probably good to tell people about the reactors now, but even if we aren’t— a few months isn’t a lot of time, and I know he’s probably just messing with us, but just in case...” 

“Yeah, I agree,” she tells him after a moment of thought. It makes sense, and really, it’s time. They haven't got as far as they need to be alone. 

“Where did you two run off to?” Raven asks with a suggestive smirk.

“Jaha wanted to talk to us,” Bellamy deadpans, and her mouth instantly turns into a frown. 

“What did he want?” 

“To give us this,” he explains, handing the chip over for her to look at.

“Oh,” she exclaims, turning a little bitter, “he didn’t offer me one of those.” 

Clarke looks around the cluttered workshop, “Where are Cas and EJ?”

Still examining the device, Raven answers dismissively, “Somewhere over there. They are breaking things for me.” 

She watches Bellamy take a deep breath, ready to take the plunge now that they know where the kids are, “And to tell us that the world is ending.” 

“Yeah, right,” Raven snorts, still looking down, but when neither of them contradicts her, she looks at them, “You’re joking? 

“No.” 

“Damn,” she drops the chip on the workbench, giving them her full attention, “You believe him?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Why, though? What’s the reasoning?” 

Bellamy glances in her direction and she nods her head slightly if Jaha knows there’s no point in trying to keep it quiet anymore. He nods in understanding and then turns to Raven, “He thought that the need to make sure our kid survived would override any doubts we still had about it all.” 

“Why would he think...” Raven starts to ask, looking behind them in confusion. 

The look doesn’t make sense until she hears EJ’s excited voice, “You’re having a baby?” 

“Oh,” Raven says, eyes wide, barely above a whisper.


	12. Bellamy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the end of the story. Or least the official end lol, there’s actually three more chapters because I have no restraint and the epilogue just kept going and going and I didn’t want to make the chapter like 10,000 words. This chapter is also like double what they started as because, again, I have no restraint. 
> 
> I’ll save the super sappy farewell message until the end but for now, just to that I appreciate everyone of you reading and that I have loved writing this story. It started as my happy place months ago and it turned out that I really was going to need it. 
> 
> That was so ridiculously sappy, I’m hitting post now before I start really going. Thanks for reading!

“Cas are you okay?” Bellamy calls out softly, conscious of not waking EJ when she shifts in her bed for the third time in as many minutes. 

“I’m fine,” she grumbles back after a second of hesitation. 

He shares a look with Clarke who’s still awake beside him despite the late hour, a mixture of amusement, fondness, and concern. In the hours since they overheard him and Clarke talking with Raven about the baby, she’s seemed off. There wasn’t anything specific; she listened intently as they finished their conversation with Raven about the reactors after a bumbled explanation to EJ’s question. If he had actually taken the time to think through telling them, he would have assumed that she wouldn’t have shared EJ’s enthusiasm, but something still seems off. 

Still, he’s learned by now that blatant concern is not an effective way of getting her to open up, so instead of more care-filled inquiries, he turns his tone sarcastic, “Yes, it sounds like you’re doing just great.” 

Clarke nudges her foot against his leg so he twists his head to look at her, offering a small shrug in answer to the question in her eyes. He doesn’t know what he’s doing any more than she does, but it seems like it’s better to acknowledge whatever it is now and not let it feaster. 

“My hair keeps ending up in my mouth,” she admits with a huff reluctantly. 

“Do you want me to braid it?” he asks, already sliding out of bed and reaching for the lamp. While he has no doubt that messy hair is the least of her current troubles right now, it’s the one she’s decided to share, so he’s going to do his best to help. 

She blinks up at him with a familiar scowl on her face, “Do you even know how?” 

“Yes,” he responds, full of confidence that he doesn’t feel. He used to do this for Octavia all the time; it hasn’t been that long; he should still remember the basics. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Clarke smirking at him like she can read his thoughts, and he rolls his eyes internally. She lets out a huff of laughter, which only serves to deepen Cas’ frown, “Come on, sit up.” 

When he makes it to the other side of the bed, he takes the hair tie Clarke is offering him and then moves to sit behind Cas, ready to get to work. He gathers her mane of curly hair into three parts, struggling before finally managing to get each section to fit into his fingers separately, and starts to twist. For a brief second, he thinks it might actually be forming into something somewhat resembling a braid, but then he realizes he’s lost almost half of one section and is forced to face the fact that he might have lost his touch. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Cas deadpans, but there’s more amusement to her statement than scorn, so he thinks it’s okay, “Have you ever done a braid before?” 

“Yes!” he says fervently, his outrage only mostly manufactured, “I used to do this for O all the time, and they were great, you can ask her. You just have so much hair; it’s unbelievable.” 

Cas lets out a snort which quickly becomes a giggle. He lets himself beam with pride, secure in the knowledge that she won’t be able to see, and therefore, it has no possibility of scaring her off. Clarke soon joins in, her own soft laughter mixing in to create a beautiful symphony, and his smile grows. He meets her eyes, and she grins back at him, “I’m sure you think they were great.” 

“Hey!” he says, barely able to contain his own laughter, “If you think you can do better, let’s see.” 

She takes his challenge with a competitive glint to her eye as she gets out of bed and makes her way over. He slides over so that his side is pressed against the wall, but on the small bed that still needs means that her shoulder touches his as she attempts to undo his mess. She combs her fingers through Cas’ hair, and the rest of the tension inside of her seems to melt away. 

They sit in silence for a while, the strands of dark hair weaving together slowly in an intricate pattern until finally, she holds out her hand for the tie that he still has and finishes it off. He looks at the design, a thousand times better than anything he was going to try to replicate, and can’t help but let out a chuckle, “Why would you let me try when you can do that?” 

“It looks good?” Cas asks, twisting her head around in a vain attempt to see. 

“It looks great,” he confirms, watching fondly as Clarke ducks her head down shyly, “although I’m not sure it’s actually a braid.” 

Clarke rolls her eyes at him, tucking a strand of loose hair back in, “It’s a French braid, my Mom used to do them for me. Your hair, Cas, is thicker like mine. It’s probably a lot thicker than Octavia’s, which is why you had such a hard time Bellamy.” 

She trails off, noticing what he did the second that she mentioned her Mom, that Cas once again seems on edge. He shares a quick look with Clarke and then gives himself a mental pep talk. They can do this, they can make her believe that she belongs with them, and if they can’t tonight, well, they’ll just keep trying until it sticks, “Cas, can you turn around and talk to us for a second?” 

For a moment, he’s not sure that she’s going to, but then she lets out a huff as though she’s making some great sacrifice and twists, so she’s sitting cross-legged facing them. He’d maybe buy the whole indifference act if not for the fact that she can’t seem to meet either of their eyes. 

“The baby isn’t going to change anything,” Clarke promises her, finding the words before he does. 

“Are we going to try and fit five of us in here then?” she snarks back, fiddling nervously with the end of her braid, and he feels a smile work its way into his face. She does have a point there. 

“No,” he tells her, but before he has a chance to continue, she’s already talking. 

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” 

His heart aches with the confidence with which she believes that they will just write her and EJ off, taking all his words. Clarke presses her side into him, and that’s enough to get him talking again even though he’s sure his voice is filled with emotion, “We are going to start construction on the cabins soon, and we’ll have one of the first ones. You’ll probably still have to share with EJ because it will only have two bedrooms, but eventually, when others are finished being built, we can expand it to have more bedrooms..."

"I always wanted a sibling,” Clarke says softly, taking advantage of Cas’ stunned silence, “Clearly, you're an amazing sister. The baby would be lucky to have you looking out for them." 

Cas stiffens again. He can easily see the way Clarke’s words could be misunderstood and quickly rephrases, “We'll always take care of all of you, but there are some things that siblings just do better than parents. You'll be their friend, their ally when they complain about how unfair we are... they'll think you're the coolest and want to be just like you." 

“Of course,” Clarke corrects quickly, “You and EJ and the baby can all gang up on us, and we will be completely outnumbered. It will be great.” 

Bellamy smiles nostalgically, thinking about his life growing up, only for the picture to change to what he hopes his life will look like in a few years. His smile grows, "Only good changes, Cas. I promise." 

"We love you, Cas,” Clarke tells her softly, “You and EJ both. Nothing will change that." 

Cas opens her mouth, but the words that she seems to want to say just don’t come out. Her brow furrows together, and her eyes turn misty in what he expects is frustration; it's an emotion he totally understands, “It’s okay to be unsure, or not ready. You can take as long as you need. We aren’t going anywhere.”  


* * *

  
The next day they sit down with Raven, along with a group of intellects she collected and a dew select council members. They were able to get approximant locations for the seven different reactors that were scattered throughout this contentment. Now, it's just a matter of finding them, so they will be able to quickly execute whatever plan Raven comes up with when she does. And then, of course, there’s getting rid of Jaha’s AI before they become a problem. 

“Do we really want to destroy whatever this technology is when it seems to hold so much information?” Abby asks again, and he has to grip the arm of his chair until his knuckles turn white to stop himself from lashing out. 

“Yes,” Clarke answers decisively. 

“I’ve got a plan for that in motion already,” Raven tells him while Abby and Clarke face off in a silent argument, “Jasper’s on it.” 

When he asks for more information, Raven’s response remains vague until finally, he gives up, deciding that he’ll find out eventually. Eventually, it turns out, happens to be the next day when an explosion goes off just outside the fence and several people, more than he thought was possible, fall to the ground, clutching their heads, along with Jaha. 

Still, he doesn’t find out what exactly happened until a few days later when he and Clarke are saying their goodbyes to the first team off in search of the reactors. A lot of people wanted him and Clarke to go, or at least one of them, but they both declined. After everything, they both decided that they are going to stick together from now on. Besides, Raven makes much more sense; he doesn’t know how to stop a reactor from blowing. 

“So, what did you do?” 

“I didn’t do anything,” Raven responds with a smirk that falls away after a moment, “It was all Jasper; he grabbed the hub that Jaha has been clinging to since he got back and then blew it up before anyone could stop him. It just made sense that destroying it would break the network... I think it was good for Jasper, doing something like that, being a part of it, and having control...” 

She trails off, but he understands what she means. It's only been a few days, but he can already see the cloud of darkness starting to dissipate. It's good. Raven is good at this type of thing. “Sure, you did. And it’s just the start. Are you ready to save the world?” 

“How did I get stuck with this job?” she jokes back with a grin on her face. 

“I don’t know,” he laughs, “but I sure as hell don’t want it back.” 

Clarke rolls her eyes, and Raven lets out a snort as different members of the group start to make their way to the rover parked in the distance. 

“Be safe,” Clarke says, pulling Raven into a hug. 

“Don’t die,” he adds on when it’s his turn. 

“God, you two are cheerful,” she responds sarcastically, pulling her bag onto her shoulder, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it, the fate of the world back to its usual state of instability.” 

He wraps an arm around Clarke’s shoulder as they watch the team of scouts disappear, listening to the sounds of the leaves shaking in the wind and enjoying the feel of the warmth of the sun on their backs long after they are gone. He has no doubt that everything is going to get even more hectic in the coming weeks, and he just wants to take this moment to enjoy all that they have. 

“So, I’ve been thinking about baby names,” Clarke says a while later, turning to face him and then standing up on her toes to rest her chin on his shoulder. 

“Oh yeah? Let’s hear them.” 

“Well I don’t have any actual names, but I was thinking,” she pauses, biting down on her lip uncertainly. Bellamy traces his finger across the point of contact, and she releases it, the corners of her mouth tipping up in a smile, “if they are a boy, I’d kind of like to honor my Dad in some way… Jacob is a good middle name, right? Or Jake?” 

“Sounds great to me,” he responds, beaming back at her. It hardly seems real, but every day, life reminds him that it is. Today it’s talking about names. In a few weeks, though, it will be something else, and then before he knows it, they will have a baby. 

Turning back to look at the sky, he considers the name, trying out different combinations. Augustus is the obvious choice; it’s a name he’s loved since he was a child naming Octavia, if she had been a boy, that’s probably what she would have been called, but it doesn’t quite fit what he wants, nor does it work well with Jacob beside it. 

Zephyr was the Greek God of the west wind, which brought early spring and summer breezes. He likes the thought of a name like that. Warmth and peace are everything that he wants for their child. Still, he dismisses it almost instantly, knowing that no one would let him live it down if he named his son something so obscure. Switching gears, he tries to think of something more common. Luke… Luke Jacob, his mouth turns down in a frown, knowing that it’s not quite right. James… James Jacob; JJ. 

Understanding hits him like a title wave; he sucks in a breath, trying to keep his footing under him. EJ, Evander Jacob. He knew the name sounded familiar as soon as Clarke mentioned. It just seemed to fit, to make sense, but he didn’t realize why. The implications of it all run rapidly through his head, and he can’t stop the huff of hysterical laughter from leaving his throat. 

“What’s wrong?” Clarke asks instantly on high alert. She steps in front of him when he doesn’t answer, placing a hand on each one of his shoulders, and looking at him closely. He looks straight back, finally noticing what’s been there all along. EJ’s eyes are the exact same shade of blue. The expression on her face, wary concern, is all Cas. 

“They are our kids,” he tells her with a level of certainty that he still can’t believe, “They are _our_ kids, Clarke!” 

“Who are?” she asks again in confusion, but she’s always been smart, quick to catch on even when he knows he’s not making the most sense. The line in her forehead deepens as she tilts her head to the side, “Cas and EJ? How? Why?” 

He reaches a hand out to try and smooth the worry line away; he didn’t mean to frighten her, “EJ’s name? Evander Jacob.” 

Her eyes light up in understanding, and some of the concern seems to dissipate, but it is far from gone, “Jacob is far from a unique name, it could be a coincidence…” 

“I don’t believe that,” he responds slowly, his heart rate finally starting to normalize, “and I don’t really think that you do either. Besides, there are other things; he has your eyes.” 

“They have your freckles,” she says with a small smile, brushing a fingertip across his cheek, but it quickly falls away. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, catching her concern from earlier, “I don’t need them to be our biological kids, that doesn’t matter to me at all if that’s what you're thinking, it’s just a cool coincidence that out of all the people they found when they came back, it would be the two of us.” 

“Or not a coincidence at all,” Clarke muses, clearly lost in her own thoughts, “Maybe it wasn’t me or you that they were drawn to when they came back, or at least, that’s not why they ended up back in this when and where— I would have already been pregnant when I found them wandering through the forest.” 

His eyes drop down to her still flat stomach, going wide, “Cas.” 

Clarke makes a noise of rejection, and he echoes it, his face twisting up into a similar expression of discomfort. Biologically, maybe the child inside her is Cas, but she’s not, not really. Experiences have to count for something, and this child is going to have a— 

“Fuck, we are their parents,” he says suddenly, and she just nods her head grimly, apparently already having come to the conclusion he just reached, “How could I have left them? You?” God, what were we thinking with EJ? We had to have known something was wrong by that point. Especially if we were already messing with the nightblood.” 

“I’m guessing that he wasn’t any more planned than she was,” Clarke offers, running a hand soothingly through his hair. 

“Still,” he objects, not really hearing her, “we already had a kid, and I just let her end up in the same position I was, the position I have continued to resent my Mom for putting me in. They were all alone, Clarke.” 

He thinks about the shadows he sees in Cas’ eyes sometimes, her reluctance to trust them, and feels a level of helplessness so strong his knees nearly buckle. He’s the one responsible for putting that look there. It was them and their carelessness. Clarke’s hand on his arm pulls him out of his spiral and then sends him into another one; she dies in childbirth, “They weren’t alone, remember? They had people for a while, people they loved, and who loved them.” 

A memory tugs at his mind, past interactions fitting together like pieces of a puzzle, “Murphy.” 

“What?” she questions, not following his scattered thoughts, but he can’t seem to find the sanity to explain them more clearly to her. Uncle John. John Murphy. He left his kids to be raised by Murphy. _What the hell was he thinking? Were there really no other options?_ She adds some pressure to her grip on his arm, enough to help get him to focus, “Bellamy?” 

“You know EJ’s mentioned an Uncle John?” he explains, sucking in a breath of air and forcing his mind to focus, “John Murphy. He mentioned the Murphy part once, but I never put it together. I mean, Murphy is not what I think about when I consider adopted parents."

“That’s… strange,” she finally lands on. 

“It’s more than strange,” he says, the hysteria building again as he thinks about it all, “It’s fucked up. I abandon my kids, and they are left to fend for themselves with the aid of Murphy. The man who was attempting to hang me only a few months ago.” 

“Bellamy,” she says softly, running a hand soothingly across his chest. 

He lets out a sigh, “What are we doing, Clarke?” 

“The same thing as before,” she answers with confidence that he knows is entirely for his benefit, “stopping the future from happening.” 

“You die,” he whispers, too horrified at the thought to say it any louder. 

“I’m not going to die.” 

“Just like that?” he says, a twinge of amusement in his question, “I didn’t realize it was that easy. I must have been doing something wrong.” 

She rolls her eyes, letting out a huff of laughter, and he instantly starts to feel a bit better. “There’s a big difference between giving birth in a hospital with some kind of doctor around and doing it while the planet is being irradiated. There are hundreds of things that would be fatal with only a child around to help, but that would be fine otherwise. Besides, we don’t even know for sure.” 

“But what if it is. What if this has all happened before? What if we have had this exact same conversation, and we go ahead thinking that it’s not going to happen and it does? What if we are stuck in a time loop?” ,

“Bellamy, take a breath. If we were stuck in a loop, Cas and EJ would have grown up with another Cas and EJ; they came back, and that’s already changed things I think,” she tells him calmly before hesitating for a second, “You can find out if you want to know for sure… we’d match with them—” 

“No,” he cuts her off sharply, running a hand through his hair in regret when she looks startled at his outburst, “I would love to know for my sanity, but it’s not worth the risks. It would be so dangerous if anyone found out they were from the future, and my peace of mind is not worth their safety. And it’s like you said, it doesn’t really matter. We aren’t going to let it happen.” 

_They aren’t going to let it happen._ The thought plays across his head in a loop, finally quelling the panic inside of him. They aren’t. He promised himself a long time ago that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to any of them. 

“Are we going to tell Cas?” Clarke asks, interrupting his thoughts.

“No,” he says again, shaking his head slowly, only this time it’s softer. It doesn’t make sense and really, he can’t see how knowing would help her at all, “She’s already so wary, so terrified that people are going to just disappear on her and if we tell her, it’s going to just make it worse. She’ll live every day waiting for the one where we are suddenly gone again and I don’t want that for her.” 

“Me neither,” she agrees, wrapping an arm around him in a half hug and resting her head on his shoulder, “but it feels like the kind of thing that she’ll find out someday and then hate us for.” 

He just shrugs slightly; she’s probably right, but he’ll take Cas possibly hating them at some distant time, if it means that she’s spent all those years happy, learning that people don’t always leave. Maybe it will happen when the baby grows up to the point where a different environment and a 14-year age gap isn’t enough to create reasonable differences, but it's also possible it won't happen at all.

Pressing a kiss into Clarke’s hair, he lets the gravity of everything settle over him. It starts to overwhelm him within seconds, but before it can truly take hold, Cas’ voice calling out distracts him. “There they are.” 

The next thing he knows, EJ’s little arms are wrapping tightly around his legs, “We were worried you might have left.” 

“I wasn’t,” Cas interjects defensively, coming to a stop a few steps away from them. 

“Where would I go?” he asks EJ, ruffling his hair, “Everything I need is right here.” 

EJ beams back at him, and when he looks up, even Cas has a shyly pleased smile on her face. He doesn't know what the future holds. He hopes Clarke is right, and they'll change things for the better. If she's wrong, though, and Cas' version of events comes to pass, he doesn't want to have wasted moments like these. He has his family around him, smiles gracing their faces and happiness sweet in the air, and that's enough. After all, time is precious.


	13. Cassandra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics are flashbacks just in case that isn't obvious. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Cas taps her foot anxiously on the ground as EJ spins in circles around her, clearly bored out of his mind, and impatient as hell too, “Why does having a baby take so long?” 

“It’s just the way it is,” she tells him, forcing her voice to be nonchalant, but the truth is, she’s worried. It's been _hours_ since she and EJ left the cabin to go to Raven’s, and she’s pretty sure that it started before they went too. She doesn’t know for sure, of course, but she doesn’t think it should take this long. EJ is looking at her, though, worry starting to cloud his pure blue eyes, so she forces a smile, “I’m sure she’s fine. Bellamy will probably be around to get us any minute... maybe we should head back?” 

They walk back together, crawling through the hole in the fence, and then along the well-worn path. They should be going back to Raven’s workshop where they are supposed to be, but she finds her feet carrying her in the direction of their cabin, and EJ makes no objects, so she goes with it. With the crowded paths, it takes them longer than she would like, but perhaps that’s fortunate. It would have been annoying to have missed Bellamy. 

“Couldn’t wait?” he asks with a grin as they step towards him. He looks exhausted, his hair is a disaster, standing up in all directions, but there’s an air of happiness surrounding him, unlike anything she’s ever seen. 

He opens the door to their cabin widely, allowing her and EJ to pass through before following them. Part of her expects the place to look different, it feels like it should after such a huge change, but it doesn’t. The room is familiar, EJ’s toys are scattered on the floor, one of her sweaters is thrown over the back of the couch, even their breakfast dishes are in the same place they left them on the table.

That is at least until she hears a noise coming out of Clarke and Bellamy’s bedroom. EJ’s eyes grow wide, he’s practically bouncing in excitement when he turns to Bellamy silently asking permission to go, only waiting for the slightest nod before taking off. 

“Watch out for Mom, buddy,” Bellamy says after a moment, stopping him with a hand right before he can jump on top of Clarke. Cas steps falter in the doorway as she watches her brother slowly get on the bed beside Clarke, looking at the bundle in her arms curiously while Bellamy watches on, the grin on his face even brighter. 

EJ started calling them Mom and Dad months before she found out the truth of it all, which probably made things easier, but right now, all it serves as is a reminder of how horrible this could go. After all, there’s no protocol for what happens when you meet yourself. 

_While she doesn’t know Octavia and Lincoln as well as she could, they have dinner altogether about once a month, she is able to tell that this night is slightly different. They finished the meal nearly an hour ago, and they are still here, which into itself is weird, but there’s also the pointed glances that Octavia and Lincoln keep sending each other with increasing regularity._

_“We have a gift for the two of you,” Lincoln finally addresses Bellamy and Clarke after another long look with O, “for the child.”_

_“It’s a grounder custom,” Octavia adds on, and everything suddenly makes more sense. While Bellamy definitely isn’t opposed to the grounders or their culture, he’s also struggled more than he’d like to admit every time Octavia shows up looking more like them and less like him._

_She’d be able to see the tension in him even without the comforting hand Clarke places on his arm, a dead giveaway, so it’s no surprise that it’s Clarke who answers, “That’s very thoughtful of you, I’m sure we’ll love it.”_

_“It’s tradition when a baby is born,” Lincoln explains, “to give them some sort of totem where a strand of their mother’s hair can be kept. They then keep this item with them till they reach their seventh year to guard against evil spirits.”_

_“That’s actually kind of interesting,” Bellamy reluctantly agrees as Lincoln pulls out the gift from the bag on his waist, and her heart stops, her eyes landing on a very familiar tarnished silver locket dangling in the air between them._

_She’s sure that they continue to speak, but she can’t hear it over the rush of blood in her ears. It’s the locket. _Her_ locket. It’s her. _

_“Cas, are you okay?” Clarke asks, watching her with a strange look in her eye._

_“It’s you—” she says, stumbling to her feet as she looks back and forth between Bellamy and Clarke, “You’re them?!”_

_It takes a second but then understanding lands in Clarke’s eyes, and that’s all that Cas needs to make a run for it. She races to the door, tripping over something on the floor and then rips the door open. Their calls to wait ring out through the chilled evening air as she hurries away, but she ignores them, continuing down the path, through the gate, and out into the forest._

_The bit of the wind is cold against her bare skin, so she wraps her arms around herself. Falling to the ground, she presses her knees against her chest and buries her face in the gap. Curled into a ball. She tries to regulate her breathing. In and out. In and out. Over and over again until she hears the telltale sound of footsteps approaching from behind her._

_“I take it you lost the argument over who had to come to find me,” she snarks when she turns and sees Bellamy’s familiar silhouette hovering beside her._

_“I didn’t. I volunteered,” he says, handing her coat without anything more than a disapproving grimace as she hurriedly puts it on, “Partly because I didn’t think it was a great idea for Clarke to come searching for you through the icy forest at nearly eight months pregnant with no clue how far you might have gone, but also... it was my call not to tell you. I figured I should feel the brunt of this, not her.”_

_The truth that she had been trying to deny since the moment she saw the locket finally lands, hitting her heavily in the chest. Once again, the urge to run consumes her, but she channels that emotion into sarcasm, “Well, at least, you’re not playing dumb.”_

_“Cas,” he says slowly, moving to lean against the tree opposite her rather than come closer, “It’s okay to feel—”_

_“How long have you known?” she asks, cutting him off, not interested in hearing how she should be feeling._

_He lets out a sigh, and she just knows that she isn’t going to like the answer, “We didn’t know, we suspected.”_

_She rolls her eyes, sure that if she just fakes it long enough the itchy feeling of tears and betrayal will disappear, “Doesn’t really seem to make a difference. When did you know, or I’m sorry, suspect?”_

_“A few weeks after we found out about the baby, the day we—”_

_“Me!” she interjects, unable to keep the emotions swirling around inside her contained any longer, “ She’s pregnant with me!”_

_“No,” he responds sternly, “she is pregnant with a baby that shares the same genetic makeup as you. Whoever they are, isn’t you.”_

_Her traitorous heart lightens at the determination in his tone, wanting to believe him, but she beats that hope back down into submission. Where has hope ever gotten her anywhere? With a dismissive scoff, she rips the locket out from under her shirt, holding it up plainly for him to see, “Really, because she’s going to grow up wearing my locket!”_

_Bellamy makes a strange stuttering noise, clearly surprised to see an exact replica of the locket Lincoln was just holding, but he doesn't say anything recognizable before the fury within her takes hold again._

_“And in a few days, you will put a few strands of Clarke’s hair in it as tradition states,” she tells him, opening the locket with shaky hands, “A few blond hairs.”_

_She’s finally able to undo the clasp, revealing the strands just as she explained. She watches the setting sun shine against them, seeing the familiar pieces of her past illuminated in a new light. Bitterness settles in her stomach at the cruelty of it all, making her flinch away when Bellamy places a comforting hand on her shoulder. She glares at him, “Don’t.”_

_A few seconds, a single beat of her heat, and a strong gust of wind is all it takes for her last tether to her past to vanish. She makes a desperate grab for them, but it’s too late. It’s all too late._

_“Oh God,” she hears Bellamy curse, “I’m sorry— I didn’t…”_

_He trails off, and she’s sure that he expects her to snap at him again, to blame him for what she just lost. He’d probably would let her, just on the off chance that it would make her see better, but she doesn’t feel the need. Instead, she just feels numb, watching the dimming sky intently for any last glimpse she might happen to catch all the while knowing that it’s hopeless._

_It’s gone. She’s finally lost it all._

_The realization that she has lost the one thing that carried her through the years, the only piece of her parents she had left, hits her suddenly, and then it’s like she can’t breathe. Huge, raking, sobs overtake her body, shaking her shoulders. Everything, the lost, the realization, the lies, and the truth, all mix together to create a storm of emotion that she doesn’t know how to handle alone, so when Bellamy pulls her into a hug, she doesn’t resist._

_She presses her face into his chest and lets him hold her, hoping that somehow, he will be able to keep her from falling completely apart. For years, she’s managed to keep it together, to hold on to everything, and not let it get the best of her, but that type of control is totally gone. She’s lost it just like she’s lost her mom’s final gift to her._

_“Do you know why we suspected and didn’t know?” Bellamy asks softly a while later when only the occasional hitch disrupts her breathing, and the odd stray tear leaks down her face. She’s not sure if she cares, for all the fuss she made about it earlier, but she doesn’t have the energy to explain that, so she just shakes her head, trusting that he’ll be able to see the movement if not feel it. “We didn’t want to know.”_

_Curiosity gets the better of her after a moment, and she looks up at him, knowing that his face will tell her what she wants to know even if his words don’t, “Why the hell wouldn’t you want to know?”_

_“Because,” he explains with a smile, tucking a piece of hair away from her face, “it didn’t matter. We could have done a test and found out, but we decided we didn’t need to. You and EJ were already our kids. We didn’t need some test to tell us that.”_

_If it were any other day, she’d roll her eyes at the sappiness of the statement. Now though, she can’t even manage a proper snort of exasperation. The noise that comes out of her throat just sounds pathetic. Not that he seems to be deterred, only pausing to wrap his arm more firmly around her before continuing,_

_“And I know we aren’t the parents that you lost, quite frankly I’m glad for that after everything they did, but we can be something to you. It doesn’t have to be mom and dad like it is for EJ, or like it will be for the baby when she’s born, but it can matter just as much because you matter just as much.”_

“I’d like to introduce you to Anastasia Ivy Blake,” Clarke says, breaking Cas out of her memory. 

“Another sister,” EJ asks, peering over to look at the bundle curiously.

“Yup,” Bellamy says, ruffling his hair and then looking up to catch her eye. After she found out, they asked her if she thought that they should fill EJ in, and after taking some time to think about it, she’d decided no, inadvertently coming to the same conclusion as them. It doesn’t matter, not to him. They are his mom and dad because of who they are, not because of the blood connection they share. 

“Do you want to hold her, Cas?” Clarke asks suddenly, looking at her still standing in the door hesitantly. 

A part of her wants to stay where she is, to let them continue to be the happy family they are now, but Bellamy’s voice, fresh in her head telling her that she matters just as much, is enough to get her moving into the room. She sits down slowly in the chair across from the bed, her heart beating wildly in her chest while Bellamy takes the baby from Clarke to hand to her. 

She doesn’t think that she’s going to disappear the moment that she touches the baby in some weird time paradox craziness, not really, not after all they'd talked about it. When the baby is fully settled in her arms, though, and nothing seems to happen, she still lets out a sigh of relief. 

For a second, it’s a little awkward; it’s been a long time since she held a child this small, and she starts to fuss, but then Cas reaches out a finger for her to grab onto like she used to for EJ. In an instant, she settles back down, gripping into her finger with surprising strength. Cas looks down, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, and sees a pair of very familiar eyes. Yeah, this could be okay.


	14. Clarke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Clarke and Cas feels and the added potential for an Abby POV outtake that may or may not happen, but probably will at some point because between me and Meyers there is absolutely no restraint. And because I’m rather attached to this universe now.

Clarke always knew that their little cabin was going to end up being too small. Even before the walls were all closed in, Bellamy was talking about the potential for expansion, but after all four of them living in such close quarters for so long, the place seemed huge. Now, though, with Ana having mastered the art of walking, she feels the tightness. Still, she doesn’t know if adding on another set of rooms is really something she wants. 

“What’s got you thinking so hard?” Bellamy asks from the other side of the bed, voiced hushed to prevent the little girl lying between them from waking, “The worlds not ending, right?” 

She lets out a snort of laughter, before quickly stifling it has Ana stirs. She runs a hand across her daughters back, soothing her in the same way that she used to back when she was only a few months old and would wake, screaming, at all hours until she’s confident that she’s going to continue to sleep. 

Once she’s sure of that, she turns her attention back to Bellamy, who is still smirking at her. Underneath the amusement, though, is the same soft look of love that she sees every time that their eyes meet. “Not that I know of, but that’s above my pay grade now.” 

He lets out his own huff of laughter, doing a better job of staying quiet than her, and shakes his head fondly, “There is no doubt in my mind that if the world really was ending, you’d be the first to know. You’re a magnet for that kind of shit.” 

“Geez, thanks,” she mutters sarcastically, but with a grin on her face. It’s nice to be able to joke about this, to be able to mention the possibility without all the weight attached to it. There’s still some of course, after everything they have been, though, she doesn’t think there ever won’t be, the reactors are fixed and they have a solid plan to make sure they stay that way. Besides, as she said, it’s above her pay grade. 

While she still plays a part in counsel discussions, her role there is mostly superficial. If she were less controlling, she probably would have backed away completely and let Bellamy continue to fight them since he seems to not only be better at it but enjoy it more. As it is, though, she’s held on to her metaphorical seat even though it’s not at all necessary. 

Everything has been good; it’s quickly approaching two years since she first ran into Cas and EJ, and in that time, she’s almost stopped bracing herself for the peace to end. They did it. Somehow, they changed the future, and now all she has to do is allow herself to enjoy it. Which she does. Most of the time. Just because they managed to prevent another nuclear apocalypse, though, doesn’t mean that there aren’t other, less catastrophic concerns keeping her up at night. 

They don’t need her to be a leader anymore. She's free to be a Mom, a wife, a friend, a doctor, and occasionally a mediator when the counsel needs her. The only hard choices she has to make are those involving her family, and even those she doesn’t have to make alone; she’s got Bellamy. Really, she always did. 

“Seriously, what’s going on in that mind of yours?” Bellamy asks again, slightly more serious. 

Letting out a heavy sigh, Clarke rubs a hand across her face, mind full of conflicting thoughts. Her internal debate instead goes on hold, however, when she once again feels Ana shift. Instantly she stiffens, holding her breath while she watches her daughter's nose wrinkle in distaste as she wiggles around to find a comfortable spot again. This time it’s Bellamy who manages to soothe her, gently running his hand through her curls. 

When she’s sure that Ana is back to sleep, Clarke lets out another sigh, much quieter this time. They really do need more space. She had assumed that having Ana with them would be a lot like EJ back at the start, but it’s not even close. EJ can sleep through just about anything. The list of pros and cons flash across her mind, battling for dominance until suddenly, she feels the bed shift. 

She looks just in time to watch Bellamy grab a blanket tossed over one of the chairs. He meets her eyes and tips his head towards the door. With a quick glance down at Ana, she nods in agreement. It appears that they are going to have this conversation now, and it would be better to not have it in hushed whispers. She quickly grabs one of Bellamy’s sweaters, pulling it over her head as she follows Bellamy out into the living space. 

Looking around the small space, she expects to see him sitting on the couch, but instead, she spots in holding the front door open. She smiles at him as she passes him, a rush of cool spring air hitting her in an exhilarating rush. Taking a deep breath, she steps forward and then sits down in their front step. 

“I guess I should get those expansion plans back out tomorrow,” Bellamy murmurs, sitting down beside her and throwing the blanket over both of them, “I don’t know if we’ll get through another winter with all of us packed in there.” 

“I’m not sure I want to pass another winter in there,” she admits, biting down hesitantly on her lip as she turns her head to look at him.   
It takes him a few seconds, but he’s Bellamy, the man who most of the time she sure knows her better than she knows herself, so he quickly figures it out, “You’ve been thinking about leaving.” 

“I don’t know,” she answers truthfully with a small shrug, grateful for the fact he’s not jumping to any horrible conclusions. After this long, he knows that she’s not going to just take off. He knows that when she’s thinking about leaving, it’s all of them and not just her. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong here, I love the life we’ve built, but...” 

She trails off, not altogether sure of exactly why she feels the urge to leave. It doesn’t make a lot of sense; things are good here, they are happy. She shouldn’t try and mess with that. Still, when he starts to nod his head slowly in agreement, she feels a rush of relief. He understands. Of course, he understands. She should never have doubted. 

“But it doesn’t quite feel like home?” he half asks, twisting to look at her as he tries to finish her thought. 

“Yes! Exactly!” Clarke responds, grinning back at him, the weight of her concerns suddenly seeming much lighter. 

“It’s not anything to do with you or the kids,” Bellamy rushes to explain as though she could ever believe that. 

“No, I know,” she assures him, placing a comforting hand on his leg, “This cabin is home, it’s just... everything else that doesn’t feel right. It’s not that it’s wrong or anything, I just feel like we could be better somewhere else, somewhere where we don’t have so much of the past weighing everything down... You’re surprised?” 

“No…” he says slowly, “more like just playing catch up. The truth is I probably would have left a long time ago if it wasn’t for you, I might have followed Octavia when they moved, but more likely, I would have taken any of the remaining 100 that wanted to come with me and left to make my own settlement right after Mount Weather. It would have been easier to build up the society that I wanted to see rather than try and change the broken one here.” 

“I didn’t realize you’d thought about it for so long,” she says quietly, turning her attention to the stars above them instead of him as she tries to process it all, “You could have said something.” 

“Hey, I didn’t need to,” he tells her quickly, grabbing hold of her hand, “I would have left because nothing was holding me here and that wasn’t the case. My place has always been beside you, I just figured that your place would be here. You have connections and attachments here that I don’t.” 

She thinks about her Mom, the most obvious of the connections he was referring to and also one of the reasons that she started to think about leaving, “I don’t want to go across the country, we’d be close enough that we could come and visit, or people could come to us. I don’t want to be gone from them forever, but some distance would be nice.” 

“Yeah it would,” Bellamy agrees with a chuckle, probably thinking about how nice it would be to not have to argue with the consul every other day, but then his face turns more somber, “I don’t know though. At the start, I put it out of my mind for you because I thought that you would want to stay, but now, we have kids, and they have attachments. While Ana would be fine, and EJ too probably, I’m not so sure about Cas.” 

Clarke smiles softly at him. There have been countless good things to come out of the last year, but one of her favorites to see has been how close Cas and Bellamy have gotten. Especially when she thinks about how far they have come. 

_Running a hand to wipe at the sweat gathering on her forehead, Clarke slowly makes her way up the hill to where she can see Cas sitting until she “It’s okay, I’m fine, you didn’t need to follow me, Bellamy.”_

_“Not Bellamy,” she finally responds,_

_Cas turns around surprised at her voice even though she quickly smothers that look with one of irritation, “Same message applies. I didn’t need anyone to come after me, I would have come back on my own after a bit. I just needed a few minutes.”_

_“I know,” Clarke says easily. She's been confident for a long time that Cas wasn’t going anywhere, even if sometimes she feels the doubts creep in, “I just wanted a few minutes too.”_

_“Yeah, I’m sure,” Cas tells her, sarcasm heavy in her voice, “Bellamy told you to come after me, didn’t he?”_

_Clarke doesn’t say anything because there’s no good answer for her to give. What she said was the truth, with a two-month-old at home, she’ll gladly take any opportunity for a few minutes of peace, but it would be a lie to say that it wasn’t the concern in Bellamy’s eyes after Cas left that ultimately got her out the door._

_“Of course, he did. God, he has a literal baby version of me to smother, you’d think that would be enough.”_

_Wincing, Clarke pauses her advance forward to look at Cas more closely. Aside from her initial conversation with Bellamy after first finding out, Clarke doesn’t think she’s even made a reference to her and Ana’s shared DNA. Clarke had believed that they were doing okay. She had thought that Cas was okay and that Bellamy had gotten through to her, but that’s clearly not the case if the tension in the young girl's shoulders is anything to go by._

_In fact, Clarke is starting to fear that this moment has been building for a while, and she’s just been too oblivious to see it. It breaks her heart while simultaneously filling her with resolve. Now that she knows, she can do something._

_Squaring her shoulders, Clarke finally moves forward, sitting on the ground a few feet away, “It’s not the same— you aren’t the same person to him, to either of us. She’s not a replacement for you.”_

_“I know,” Cas says, rolling her eyes, but Clarke’s not so sure that she does._

_“Do you?”_

_“Yes,” Cas answers again, twisting to look at Clarke this time, “I do, I promise, it’s just... he’s frustrating sometimes.”_

_Clarke lets out a laugh because, yeah, she gets that. She loves Bellamy, loves him with her whole heart, but she’s more than familiar with how tiresome his overprotectiveness can be at times, “I know, trust me I get it. It all comes from a good place, though, you know.”_

_Instead of answering, Cas just grumbles non committedly, and Clarke is left wondering whether she should push the subject. Cas lets out a sigh and continues, though, before she has to make a decision, “I know... I’m just not used to this still. I haven't had people care that much where I go or when I'm back—at least not that I can remember...”_

_“I think that’s part of it,” Clarke says slowly, “I mean, it’s who he is, but it’s also that he’s stuck on what the other versions of us did. He was angry at them before we knew, now though, he’s angry and guilty. Sometimes, I think that means he overcompensates.”_

_“He doesn’t need to be guilty,” Cas tells her, groaning in exasperation, “He didn’t do anything wrong. Hell, they didn’t even do anything wrong. It was a horrible situation that they did their best with.”_

_She smiles at the way Cas makes it sound so simple, glad that she at least still has that part of her innocence, and tries to explain, “I know that and you know that, I think even he knows it, but it’s hard to let logic win out, especially for Bellamy; he’s all heart.”_

_Clarke grins, thinking about all the times Bellamy has led with his heart. When she glances at Cas a few seconds later, she finds a similar expression on her face. The fond amusement fades after a moment, though, as she turns to look at Clarke closely, “You don’t feel like that too, right?”_

_“No,” Clarke answers after taking some time to consider it, “I think it’s easier for me, though. Your version of me didn’t have a choice in leaving you, his did.”_

_Cas shakes her head, “No, I don’t think he. Dad did what he had to do to protect his family, which, for the record, is exactly the same thing Bellamy would do if he were in that position. It made sense. I’ve never doubted that they loved me. We were a family, they loved us, just like now.”_

_Biting back a grin, Clarke feels her throat tighten with emotion at the confidence with which Cas can say that. Her instinct is to hug her, but she still lets Cas dictate most physical affection, so instead, she settles for bumping her shoulder against Cas’ lightly, "I'm glad I found you."_

_"I'm glad I let EJ convince me to come back with you," Cas adds on, smiling back at her shyly._

_"Me too," Clarke says softly, thinking about how different her life would have been if they hadn’t have come back with her, "I wouldn't have stayed without you."_

_“I know,” Cas responds with a smirk, “You wouldn’t have even walked through the gate... I wouldn’t have without you either."_

_The urge to embrace her hits Clarke even harder, but she still keeps her arms by her side. Cas, however, must see something of the desire in her because she lets out a sigh and then leans over, wrapping her arms around her. Clarke hugs her back, her heart impossibly full, “I’m glad we had each other.”_

“What’s that look for?” Bellamy asks, pulling her out of the memory.

“Cas,” she reveals, observing the glimmer of happiness in his eyes, outshining the concern, “and just— you’re a good Dad,” 

He laughs nervously, running a hand through his hair and then looking away shyly, “I guess. I try.” 

“You worry. You care,” she tells him, hoping that one day she’ll say it enough that he actually starts to believe her. 

“I just want what’s best for all of them.” 

“I know you do, I do too,” she says as he rests his hand on her leg, assurance that he never thought otherwise, “Leaving could be good for them.” 

“It could,” he agrees, “I don’t want to take another home away from her. She’s finally settled I think; she seems genuinely happy most of the time now. I don’t want to mess with it.” 

“We both know that home is people, not a place. She can be happy somewhere else.” 

He twists to face her fully, looking at her critically, “Why are you so adamant about this? Why now? I can get on board with it, and it’s a good discussion to have, but it feels like you’ve already made your mind up, which means something must have happened.” 

“I’m sorry,” she says with a sigh, rubbing a hand across her face. Well over a year into this with him, more than six months actually married, but still, her default sometimes when everything feels unpredictable is to retreat into herself. She should have just talked to him, told him what was bothering her. 

“You don’t need to be sorry, I’m not entitled to every single one of your thoughts. It just feels like you want to shove all our belongings into bags, grab the kids, and be gone before first light, and I’d like some kind of an explanation before I start packing.” 

“It’s not quite that desperate,” she tells him with a smile, thankful for the teasing to lighten the mood, but more so for the unconditional support. She bits down on her lip. It really does seem crazy, but this is Bellamy; he gets to hear her crazy thoughts, “I’m worried that my Mom is starting to figure it out about Cas.” 

“Like time travel?” Bellamy asks slowly, letting out a curse when she nods solemnly, “That world be bad. What level of worried?” 

“I don’t know,” she groans, “sometimes I think that it’s all in my head, but then she spends too long looking between Cas and Ana, or she’ll ask a question about their background and then seems dubious of my answers. I just don’t know if I trust that she won’t take a blood sample and compare it just to appease her curiously. So yeah, I’m worried, but I have no idea if it’s justified.” 

“You’re worried enough that you want to leave; that means something.” 

“Enough that I want to talk about leaving,” she amends to which he levels her with a disbelieving stare, “Enough that the idea of leaving, which already seemed appealing, now seems even more appealing, but really, I just want to talk. I haven’t made my mind up; I can’t. I can’t decide what’s best for everyone.” 

“Okay then let’s talk,” he suggests with a smile, “and we’ll figure it out together.” 

She smiles at his pointed use of together. In the weeks that followed pulling that lever in Mount Weather, she never could have imagined the peace that would come from just hearing that word. Instead of being a sacrifice, it’s now a promise, a literal wedding vow, that whatever comes, they aren’t alone. 

For the first time in hours, she feels the tension drain out of her. She’s got Bellamy beside her, and that’s all she needs. They will figure this out. Together they can figure anything out.


	15. Bellamy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve definitely delayed posting this last chapter, I’m sorry to anyone who’s been waiting, it’s just crazy to me that it’s actually over. I’ve loved writing this, and I’m kind of sad to be finished… so it probably won’t be lol. I don’t know when there will be more (or maybe I do haha, but I’ll leave that as a surprise for all of you), but there will be. 
> 
> If any of you have anything you’d like to see, let me know, either in the comments or I’ll link my tumblr at the end, I’m open to suggestions. Or if you have any questions, please ask away. Between me and Meyers, we’ve probably got an answer to everything. Want to know about Cas’ original timeline? Want to know what the new baby's name is? We got answers because we are obsessive like that. 
> 
> Okay, with that said, I _love_ this chapter. I’ve been waiting for it since like chapter two and it has possibly one of my favorite lines of dialogue I’ve ever written. I hope you all like it too. Thanks for reading, commenting, kudoing, I’ve loved seeing it all.

“Help, please. Someone, help!” an unfamiliar female voice calls out, stopping their little convoy in its tracks. 

From his position in the middle of the group, Bellamy can’t quite make up what has happened, but he doesn’t have to wait long for an answer. Miller jogs up to him from the front of the line just as Clarke finds her place beside him, Ana perched on her hip. 

“What’s going on?” 

“It’s a young woman— probably around our age, a grounder. She stumbled out of the woods with what seems to be some kind of head injury,” Miller answers her question quickly and efficiently. 

“Was there visible blood?” Clarke asks urgently, “Did she seem disoriented?” 

She makes to step forward to investigate herself, clearly unimpressed with Miller’s shrug, but he stops her with a gentle hand to her arm. He’s got a bad feeling about this, and he’s learned to trust those feelings. Looking at Clarke, he tries to silently explain his concerns, which she begrudgingly accepts after a moment, allowing him to turn his attention back to Miller, “Was she being followed?” 

“No, from what I understand, the injury came from a fall.” 

Clarke sends him a look that clearly says _see, everything is fine,_ but he’s still not so sure. Over the last year and a half, he’s traveled this route countless times while they slowly built not only their new house but their settlement as well, and while he hasn’t actually encountered any thrives on the road before, he’s been warned countless times to watch out. “It could be a trap.” 

“Or it could be a young woman in need of some help,” Clarke counters. He takes a calming breath, preparing to argue about this with her without turning it into a fight, but she must see the intent in his eyes because she shakes her head, hands Ana to him, and then starts to walk away. She turns back to face him when she’s a few steps away with her hands raised, “I want to believe in the best of people, not the worst.” 

She turns around without another word and Bellamy feels his jaw clench together in irritation, only releasing when Ana slaps her pudgy hand against it, “Mommy bad?” 

“No,” he tells his daughter with a sigh. He loves Clarke with all his heart, and he’s endlessly grateful that she’s got her optimism back, but it would be a whole lot easier on his sanity if she would take fewer risks, especially right now. 

“Do you want me to go with her?” 

“No,” Bellamy says again, attempting to push concern for Clarke aside for the moment and think about everyone else he is responsible for. While there are nearly 50 of them in the group, they are transferring the belongings of more like 70, some people already having made the journey. If there are poachers out there, then this would be a huge score, “keep the line moving. If people are waiting in the forest to attack, we don’t need to make it easy on them.” 

“What’s going on?” Cas asked, walking up to them with Fox beside her, “Why did we stop?” 

Ignoring her for a second, Bellamy levels Miller with a look, “Just tell everyone to keep their eyes open.” 

“Will do… and Clarke?” 

“I’ll deal with Clarke,” Bellamy tells his friend maybe a little too sharply, feeling the urgency to get moving again. They have most definitely been stopped for too long. 

“What happened to Clarke? Where is she?” Cas questions them with enough fear in her voice that Bellamy instantly turns his attention back to her. 

“She’s fine,” he tells her, pausing to nod in Miller’s direction as he walks away, “She’s just being Clarke.” 

Cas raises an eyebrow at him in a look that is so intrinsically Clarke that he can help but smile slightly despite the tension running through him, “That’s not an answer.” 

“Someone called out for help; I think it might be a trap, and she went to go help anyways,” Bellamy explains quickly as they start to move forward again, “Don’t worry, I’m going to go check on her. I’m sure it’s fine.” 

“Do you want me to?” Cas asks, gesturing to Ana. 

He thinks about it for a second, weighing the pros and cons as quickly as he can in his head before finally shaking his head in the negative. Since Ana was born, he and Clarke both have been very careful about handing responsibility for her over to Cas, only doing it in the lowest stakes moments or when it was vitally necessary. It’s something he was overly cautious about going into it all, and the ease with which she just made the offer reminds him that he was right to be, “No, it’s fine.” 

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.” 

“Yeah,” he says, knowing that he made the right call, “Go with Fox to the back of the line and watch out there… if you see EJ, though, get him to come and take her.” 

She nods her head just like Miller did, playing the role of a cadet instead of a daughter, and he feels something like pride bubble in his chest. This is what she wants to be doing, and he wants that for her. EJ will be happy to be given the task of watching over his sister in a way that Cas isn’t. He’s positive that they both love her just as much, but EJ has taken to the job of big brother very similarly to how he did with O. He loves every minute of it. 

By the time he catches up to Clarke, she is sitting on the side of the dirt road with her medical bag beside her with her patient in front of her, the convey is already almost halfway past her. He pauses for a moment to watch their interaction, studying the strange woman before finally making himself known, “How are you feeling?” 

“Much better thanks to your doctor here. You don’t know how lucky you are to have someone with her talents traveling with you.”

“Oh, I think I do,” he responds, meeting Clarke’s eyes with a smirk. She rolls her eyes slightly in exasperation, but he can see the smile trying to work its way into her face. He’s so captivated by it, by her, that he doesn’t notice EJ making his way towards them until his gangly ten-year-old body is colliding with the grounder stranger. 

“Aunt Mori, I missed you so much,” he tells the woman, wrapping his arms around her in what Bellamy now realizes is a hug. 

“What?!” she asks, startled, looking between Clarke, him, and EJ. He watches back, understandings starting to form in his mind. 

“Where’s Uncle John?” 

_Fucking John Murphy. Of course, he’s the one who’s raiding innocent travelers,_ Bellamy thinks, annoyed. 

“Uncle John,” the woman stutters a couple times before calling out louder, “John!” 

There’s rustling in the trees behind them, and a second later out pops Murphy, frantically looking around till his eyes land on the woman, “Emori! Are you all alright? You never gave the signal… who’s that?” 

That seems to be EJ’s cue to pull himself away from the woman— Emori— and fling himself at Murphy. _Murphy._

“I missed you, Uncle John,” he tells him softly, and Bellamy feels his heart melt in spite of himself. That is at least until Murphy opens his mouth. 

“Who the fuck are you?” 

“Language,” Bellamy snaps, mostly out of habit, but also to prevent his son from getting his heart further broken by a man he’s still not sure deserves it. 

“Blake. Long time no see,” Murphy says, casually confident as he looks over him. His gaze then turns to Clarke, “Princess.” 

“Murphy,” Clarke says back in the same coolly collected tone only to be cut off by Ana who’s apparently decided she’s been left out of the conversation too long. 

“Pwin’ess me.” 

Murphy’s snap up to the toddler in his arms, an indescribable look crossing his face, “Oh you two reproduced, lovely.” 

Bellamy rolls his eyes good-naturedly, well aware that his youngest has a lot of personality, “Can you say hi, Ana?” 

She lets out a soft hi before burying her face into his shoulder, suddenly shy, but Murphy’s attention is back on EJ, still clinging to him. “How the fuck do you two have a child this tall? It’s been like three years!” 

“He’s adopted,” Bellamy says quickly, earning himself a groan of dismay from Clarke. 

“Yeah, and I’m the king of a far-off land, set to inherit the throne any day now. I sell bullshit for a living, Blake, not buy it.” 

“He is,” Bellamy tries again, feeling more desperation than he’d ever like to feel around Murphy of all people. 

Clarke comes to his rescue then, “He’s ten Murphy, I would have been 11 when he was born. It’s not possible.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think so, not with that hair and those eyes. He’s totally your kid,” Murphy says, reminding Bellamy of why he couldn’t stand him. A smirk slides onto his face, and Bellamy feels the urge to punch someone unlike he’s felt in years; probably since the last time he saw him, “Go ahead and try another lie though, this is amusing.” 

Luckily, he is spared having to come up with something else by the end of the convoy and the arrival of Cas. She says something to Fox and then comes to stand with them, stopping short, seeing just who’s with them, “Oh fu—” 

“Language!” Bellamy snaps again even though he’s well aware that no one is listening to him. 

“Oh my god, there’s a fucking teenage too,” Murphy says in a hushed breath, finally losing some of his cool demeanor, “What the hell is going on?!” 

“Look Dandy! I finally found them,” EJ cries out in excitement, either oblivious or dismissive of the tension in the air. 

None of them acknowledge him, though, looking between each other warily until finally, Clarke looks over her shoulder to see how far everyone else has gotten. Seemingly satisfied, she turns back to Murphy, her mouth set into a grim line, “Would you believe time travel?” 

“You’re fucking with me, right?” Murphy asks, disbelief clear in his voice, but then his eyes shift from Clarke to Cas then back to Clarke, and incredulous acceptance overtakes his expression. 

Bellamy turns to try and see what the other man saw, wondering what could have changed his mind so quickly, but when he does, the answer seems obvious. Clarke and Cas have almost identical expressions across their faces. Their mouths are set in the same thin line; their eyes hold the same wariness. Despite the tenseness of the situation, Bellamy feels laughter bubbling out of him. Even though he finds it happening with more and more regularly, it’s always fun to see the similarities between the two of them shine through. 

_“This is it,” Bellamy says, spreading his arms wide to display the clearing in front of him. He takes a second to look at it, seeing it for what it is, a wide field on the top of a hill, but also what it will be someday soon, a house big enough to fit them all forever._

_“It looks great,” Cas responds, her voice pitched in a way that tells him that it’s entirely for his benefit._

_When he turns to look at her, examining the space with her head tilted to the side slightly and her eyes narrowed in concentration, he has to bite back a grin. It’s almost the same expression of confused fondness that Clarke wore when he showed this spot to her months ago, back when the clearing was filled with trees and those trees had newly budding green leaves and not red, yellow, and orange ones._

_His eyes are drawn to the pile of lumber. The product of months of work, all ready to start being turned into a home. He can see it, the study walls, and the warm fire in the living room, but just because he can doesn’t mean that everyone else can. It doesn't matter; it will be finished soon enough. Although soon, which is still close to a year off, seems laughable compared to the expectations they had when they first started talking about leaving six months ago._

_It turns out that leaving takes time even though they decided that going was the right choice relatively quickly. First, they had to find where they had to go; the perfect distance where they would be far enough from Arcadia, but still not too far. Then they needed to get the okay to use the land from the commander; Clarke went alone to see Lexa, leaving him with all the kids, and it was possibly the most stressful week of his life._

_They made it through it all, though. The land was set aside for their settlement; and now, it has been cleared, not only for them but for everyone who's going to join their community. They even have space set aside for what will end up being the town center. It's all coming together beautifully._

_Cas shifts beside him, pulling him out of his thoughts. He turns to her with a grin on his face, “You’re more convincing, at least.”_

_“No, I’m excited. Really, I promise,” Cas tells him quickly, casting a nervous glance at Clarke._

_“He’s just being difficult,” Clarke cuts in, stepping forward to put Ana on the ground before he can assure Cas of the teasing nature of the comment, “When he brought me here the first time, I just stared blankly at the trees for a while which he tried to make me feel horrible about.”_

_“I didn’t do anything,” Bellamy protests lightly, but Cas is already shaking her head._

_“You probably did.”_

_Clarke steps forward to high five Cas, both of them turning to smirk at him after completing the action, and he feels his heart warm. He wasn’t sure what to expect with Cas and Ana, how similar they would appear, especially when Cas is like this, smiling and happy, but he finds that there aren’t that many similarities. There are the physical attributes, of course. They have the same mole on their right shoulder, and their hair curls back in the same direction._

_Most of the time, though, he sees more similarities between EJ and Ana than Cas and her. They have the same kind of innocence surrounding them, an ease with which they go through life that Bellamy both evicts and is immensely grateful for. Really, they both act like kids, while Cas has always held the seriousness of an adult._

_His thoughts are torn away from Cas suddenly, though, when EJ calls for Cas to come and see something. She goes with one last glance back at them as if to make sure that going to have fun is alright, and he is overcome with the memory of Clarke, their first Unity Day on the ground when he suggested that she should have some fun._

_The reality is the Cas doesn’t just have the seriousness of an adult, but the seriousness of her mother. He turns to look at Clarke, thinking about how much has changed between them since that moment years ago, before turning back to Cas, who’s spinning Ana around with a grin on her face._

_When he glances back to Clarke, he’s not surprised at all to see a similar expression. Both of them are learning how to let go, to just enjoy the good parts of life while they last, and he couldn’t be prouder of them. He wraps an arm around Clarke’s waist, smiling to himself when she leans into him instinctively, “You can totally see it now though, right? How it will look when it’s all finally finished?”_

_“Not at all,” she tells him with a laugh, “but you do, so I’m sure it’s going to be good.”_

_He leans over to kiss the top of her head, smiling at Cas, EJ, and Ana run around what he plans to be their kitchen. He’s going to have his family all around him, happy and safe in a home that he knows is just right. It’s going to be great._

“Stop glaring,” Cas tells him, taking a seat beside him. 

“I’m not glaring,” Bellamy responds even as he continues to stare broodily through the fire of their campsite. On a normal day, they would be able to make the entire journey at once, but with all these people and their stuff, it’s going to take at least two. Before, that hadn’t sounded that bad. With Murphy joining up with them now, though, he desperately wishes he could have just gone home with his family. Although, he probably would have ended up with Murphy sleeping on his couch, knowing his luck. 

“You’re totally glaring.” 

Letting out a sigh, Bellamy finally turns his attention away from Murphy sitting beside EJ with Ana on his lap and onto Cas, watching him with a smirk, “I just don’t get it.” 

“What?” 

_Why you two seem to love him so much,_ is what he wants to say, but that sounds ridiculous even in his own head, so he settles for gesturing towards them, his scowl deepening when he hears Ana laugh, just know that it will have been Murphy who produced that magical sound. 

“I don’t know, it’s Murphy,” she answers, shrugging, “His brand of weirdness works well with kids.” 

Bellamy lets out a snort of amusement, grateful to Cas for humoring his issue with this and thankful that she feels comfortable enough to do so, “Yeah, I can actually see that.” 

“You’ll learn to appreciate him soon enough...” Cas says and then stops, hesitating before continuing, “It will be nice for you and Clarke to have someone to take a kid every now and again. You’re going to have a lot.” 

“You...” he says slowly, looking at Cas intently as the knot within his chest tightens, but then she smiles at him, and he is able to let out the breath he’d been holding, “Please tell me that you don’t have a sister waiting all alone back in your future?” 

She laughs softly, which feels like a victory, her eyes gleaming with the kind of happiness he loves to see, “A sister?” 

“Or a brother,” he adds on sheepishly, “We don’t know yet, I’ve just been thinking it’s a girl... did Clarke tell you?” 

“No,” she tells him, confirming his suspicions. They have missed each other almost all day, dividing the leadership roles of organizing people between them, and that was before Murphy showed up, but he would have thought she’d take the time to talk to him if that had happened. “At least, not unless you call repeatedly puking this morning telling me.” 

There's a grin on her face that seems genuine, so he doesn’t think she’s upset about it, but he’d still like to make sure, “Are you doing okay with it all? We were planning to tell you as soon as we got settled in the new place.” 

“I’m good,” she claims quickly, but he must look like he doesn’t believe her because she rolls her eyes and continues, “I am, I promise. It turns out it’s actually kind of fun having siblings when you don’t have to be responsible for their survival.” 

In an instant, Bellamy feels his happiness with the moment diminish slightly, "Yeah, I get that. I wish you never felt that way. I didn’t want that for you. For a long time, I resented my mother for that. It should never have been 'my sister, my responsibility'." 

"It wasn't like that...” she tells him, not quite meeting his eyes for the first time during the conversation, but not moving away either, “Not really anyways. Murphy and Emori did their best; they were there, it’s just when you’re in that type of a situation, where every day is about survival, it’s all hands on deck... you know how you don’t understand about Murphy?” 

“Yes,” he responds, not sure where she’s going. 

“Once when I was like eight, we were outside, and EJ slipped on some rocks; I wasn’t used to him moving around so quickly yet, so I wasn’t watching closely enough. Anyways, I felt so guilty even after they told me it wasn't my fault that I yelled out that he was my responsibility, and Murphy got mad; it was the angriest I ever saw him. He told me not to say it, that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t till later when I talked with Emori, that I realized that he was just upset. He didn’t want that life for me either.” 

“I guess,” he starts to say, trying to talk past the lump in his throat, “I’m glad that you had him... It sounds like he was great.” 

“He was great,” Cas agrees, “him and Emori both, and I loved them, but he was never my dad... not like you are." 

The emotion that was threatening to overtake him before suddenly overwhelms him. She’s never once referred to him as her dad, not even in terms of biology. And it’s not like he’s been waiting for it, he meant what he said back when she first found out, he doesn’t need to be called dad by her for their relationship to mean as much as his and EJ’s or his and Ana’s, but it does have a nice ring to it. 

"Come on,” Cas continues when it’s clear that he isn’t able to say anything, meeting his eyes and then looking away shyly, “I love you both. You have to know that by now." 

Well aware that the tears he was holding back by sheer will power are now falling down his face, Bellamy leans over and pulls Cas into a tight hug, hoping that the action will convey all the emotions he’s not sure how to express. There is one, though, that he knows how to share plainly, “I love you, Cas, you’ll never know how much.” 

Cas groans, but he knows it’s mostly for show; he can feel the dampness over her own tears against his neck. She presses his face into her hair, enjoying the moment until he hears a noise beside them. When he looks up, he sees Clarke watching them, eyes glassy with unshed tears and cheeks bight with ones that have escaped. 

He smiles at her, and she smiles back, full of beauty and joy. He removes one of his arms from around Cas, lifting it up in invitation. Before Clarke can get over to them, though, he feels the impact of one small body, closely followed by another. 

“I wanna hug daddy too,” Ana proclaims, her voice distorted as she squeezes herself between him and Cas, throwing one arm around his neck while the other, still attached to EJ, pulls him into the pile. 

EJ wraps his free arm around Cas and then turns to look at Clarke, “Come on, mom, you too.” 

Clarke's smile seems to grow even more radiant as she quickly moves to join the hug, completing them. 

It really hits him then, as he wraps his arm around Clarke's waist, his hand coming to rest on her small bump where their fourth child is growing, that this could have easily never happened. If Cas hadn't come back, if Clarke hadn't, if they'd never come down to the ground. So many things could have gone wrong, but they didn't. 

They survived; they lived and will continue to do so. They earned their happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me [here](https://the-words-in-my-head-12.tumblr.com/post/632169206795976704/the-words-in-my-head-12-time-after-time-cas-is)


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